Souls of Light
by eric8teen
Summary: The land is immersed in chaos and death for more than two centuries, but the apparition of a young girl, and the rise of a young hero will change the destiny of the whole continent for ever.
1. Prologue

Souls of light

Prologue

"_**In the land where fear strikes the hearts of the weak, brave man will stand up for them, they'll swing their swords in the air, bash their shields and shout out their warcry! For when true evil strikes, one shall show himself in the crowd in panic, he'll unsheathe his sword and lead the weak against the strong, he'll make the people stand up for themselves, he'll make all the dark to retreat to the abyss. And the sun of the glorious will rise that day, and all will know that this will be the time when darkness itself shall fear the weak forever!"**_

_**Famous last words from the great King Arimminus, lord of Karhulman.**_

The land of Amaludia, a huge continent full of different kingdoms, different cultures and different races that used to live in peace with each other, but one day, Emperor Lukta'hal form the Nubialus Empire declared war at the free nations of Amaludia. In response, the kingdoms of Karhulman, Maktua, Repytkii and Kaiauul, along with other small countries, signed a treat of alliance called "Amaludia's Knights", in an effort to stop the Emperor of bringing war and death through the lands of Amaludia, but still, it's not enough to stop him, he also made alliances with the wild people from the west, who possesses strange but dangerous creatures never seeing before by any man or women in the lands of Amaludia, the war started about 230 years ago, and so much people have suffered already, but one turn of events will make a stop to this war once and for all, and this turn of events will be triggered by a farmer boy of 17 years old that had found a girl of 16 years old with blue hair, unconscious in one of his hunts…


	2. Chapter 1: The girl with blue hair

Souls of light

Chapter 1: The girl with blue hair

In a farm house, a young boy of 17 years old wakes up, he washes his face and go to the dining room. He looks over the window and sees his uncle plowing the field, he waves his hand to him, he then eats his breakfast, change his clothes and grab a bow and some arrows to go hunting. Ha pass next to his uncle and stop for a conversation…

"So, Ankas, are you going to hunt again?"

"Yeah uncle, I'll be right back."

"Okay, just be careful all right?"

"Sure!"

After he said that, he turns to a path that leads to the forest near the village where he lives. He hears a stick breaking and immediately pulls an arrow and pulled his bow, in hopes that is something bigger than a rabbit. Some bushes ahead of him start to move, like something was trying to run away from him. Without hesitation, he goes after it, in vain though because after a while of running and running he lost tracks of it. When he was looking around, trying to find another prey, when he found a friend, collecting mushrooms in an old, fallen oak branch.

"Hey there Maxis! How are you doing?" Said Ankas.

"Wow! Ankas? Long time no see pal!" answered Maxis.

They sit down on the branch and started to chat. Chatting about the old times and small new adventures that they've lived so far, after all, it's not all the time that you can talk to a childhood friend that lives in a big city…

"So, what are you doing now?" Asked Ankas

'Well, I've got the chance I wanted, you're looking to the most new apprentice of the great wizard Gilldendart!" He answered while boasting himself.

"Well, that's great to hear! Was that why you were collecting mushrooms?"

"Yeah! For a new healing potion that i am learning, i must say, Gilldendart is a great wizard, he can be an ungraceful old man."

"Ha ha! Is that so?"

"Yeah… But, what about you Ankas? What are you doing now?" Asked Maxis.

"Well, nothing really I guess, since that day, I'm living with my uncle now and helping him out with the farm and everything, but sometimes, things are just too difficult."

"Ah, i see… _He means that day…_" Maxis thought to himself.

They were still talking while walking through the forest, when they came across an old temple. They entered inside, Maxis looked over the walls that looked like to be decorated by old paintings, punished by the time. Maxis stopped for a moment and looked into his bag…

"I know that I've seen this paintings somewhere…" Maxis said, while searching something inside his bag.

"What is it?" Ankas asked.

"Aha! Here we go. Now, now… Where was it?" Maxis said while he looked in some pages of an old book that he took of his bag.

"What are you looking for?" Ankas asked, really impatient.

"Here! This temple was created by the long lost civilizations that inhabited this lands, the Makairu! According to this, the temple was created to the 'souls of light'." Maxis said.

"What do you mean by 'souls of light'?" Ankas asked.

"The Makairu believed that for every single action on the land, most of them made by nature, was made by the action of spirits, put in this world to watch over humans and help, or depending on their actions, condemns them. It said that they used to live here in the land with the mortals in human form, but something terrible happened and they had to live us behind." Maxis said.

"Something… terrible?" Ankas said.

"Sorry, but I'm not really good with this ancient runes yet, I'm still learning them." Maxis said.

"Well, at least you already told what this temple is for, as expected from the greatest history maniac from all the land of Karhulman!" Ankas said while laughing.

After doing some research on the temple they come out and stare at the entrance of the old temple, plants grow from every crack on its walls, and it looked to be transformed into a natural life community, with lots of different birds making nests everywhere.

"You know, I was wondering…" Maxis said.

"What?" Ankas asked.

"Do you think that the world would be different if the souls of light would be here?" Maxis asked.

"Well, I don't know about that, but they could at least come back at this time right? I mean, the Empire are advancing more and more every single day, I wouldn't complain to have a little help." Ankas said.

"Yeah, that might be true…" Maxis said.

Ankas turns to the horizon and sees that the sun is coming down, and it's already getting really dark.

"Well, I guess that's it, it's a shame though, I couldn't hunt anything today…" Ankas said.

They both had shaken their hands and Maxis was going the way back to his city, he then turns around and say:

"Farewell Ankas! May we find our paths crossed again my friend!" Maxis said.

"_What's with the way he is talking?"_ Ankas thought to himself while waving his hand to Maxis.

He then turned back to the direction of the temple entrance and stood there for a minute.

"Spirits of light hun…?" Ankas said to himself.

He turned to the way back to the village and started walking, but not too far from there he tripped over something and felt in an improvised wooden staircase.

"What the hell? What was that?" Ankas asked himself.

He walked back all the way up the improvised wooden staircase and found a girl with blue hair, with no cloths on and unconscious.

"W- what the- ?" Given the situation that Ankas found himself in he wasn't even able to talk correctly.

"Mhh…" The girl starts to moan, as she starts to wake up.

"Hey! Are you alright?" Ankas asked.

She than looks at him, it looks like she doesn't understands what he's saying. She touches her neck and after that she starts to look around, looks like that she lost something.

"Hey, what is it? Did you lost something?" Ankas asked.

She then grabs him by his collar and starts to say some words in an unknown language by him, It seemed as an old language.

"H- hold on! At least cover your body first!" Ankas said while lending her his cape to cover her, he turns his face as he becomes more and more red by the actual state of the girl.

The girl than just give up on searching for her lost object and wears the cape trying to hide her body, she still tries to understand why she have to cover her body parts.

"hmm…? What is that?" A shine object picked Ankas's attention, he grabs the object and pull It out of the bushes that was next to him. It was a necklace, it chains are made out of a unknown material, and there is a shine transparent orb that seems to have some kind of smoke inside.

The girl sees the necklace and starts to get restless.

"Is that what you were looking for? Here, take it." Ankas said while he gives her the necklace.

The girl wears on the necklace, now she seems calmer.

"Well, are you okay now?" Ankas asked.

"Yes! Thank you very much for finding this to me!" The girl said.

"WOW! Y- you understand what I'm saying?" Ankas asked her.

"Yes!" The girl answered.

"bu- but how did you…? Never mind, let's just get out of here before it is completely dark." Ankas said.

He pulled her by her hand and both of them started walking back to the village. In the way, the girl seemed amazed by all things around her, it seemed like she never saw these things before.

"Hey, if it's not a problem, could I ask you were you come from?" Ankas asked.

The girl seemed a little disturbed about the question.

"Sorry, I can't tell you…" She said.

"No problem, it's just that you don't seem to be from these parts of Amaludia." Ankas said.

"Could you please change the subject…" She asked, seemed a little troubled about her past.

"Okay then… What happened to your clothes?" Ankas asked.

"Clothes?" The girl said. She seemed troubled about this question.

"Yeah, I mean, you're not wearing anything to cover your body." Ankas said.

"My… body?" She said, while opening the cape that was around her body, showing everything.

"OI OI! COVER IT UP!" Ankas shouted, while covering his face with his hands, his face was really red.

"S- sorry…" She said while closing back the cape involving her body.

"Is it a problem if people don't use these… umm… clothes in this land?" She asked.

"Of course it is! What kind of place did you lived in?" Ankas said

She looked upset.

"Sorry, I forgot, nothing about your background…" Ankas said.

"Sorry. It's just that… I promised not to tell anyone…" She said.

"By the way, what's your name…? You do have a name, don't you?" Ankas asked.

"My name is Hatsune Miku!" She said.

"Miku? That's a strange name, especially around these lands. Well, at least I have a name, mine is Greenian Ankas, nice to meet you!" He said.

"Greenian… Ankas? I've never heard such a name before." Miku said.

"_She's definitely from a foreign land…" _Ankas thought to himself.

After a while, Ankas finally sees a path that leads them back to the village. They start to walk on the path back to his house and people around just kept looking at the mysterious girl that had blue hair, and why she was barefoot? And what's Ankas doing walking with such a strange girl? The people had no shame, they didn't even whispered, Ankas and Miku could hear them perfectly, but it was not like that Miku was feeling offended or anything, Ankas looked over her and she was just amazed again by all the different thing in the village, like the farm tools, the torches, the animals, the peoples clothes, and the list just goes on and on…

"Here we are!" Ankas said pointing to a farm house right ahead of them.

"Oh! So you live there? It looks really comfy!" Miku said.

That sounded really strange for Ankas, it was just a little farm house, but the way she looked, it seemed like a palace, but still, we're talking about a girl that was marveled by the birds and trees she looked around, she seemed like a real scatterbrain.

"Tadaima!" Ankas said, while opening the door.

"Okaeri!" His uncle answered.

His uncle then noticed the girl that was behind him, barefoot, covering her body with Ankas's cape.

"And who this might be?" His uncle asked.

"This girl, she said her name is Hatsune Miku, I found her near an old temple in the forest while I was hunting, she was wearing nothing, and the only thing she had was this necklace that she's wearing." Ankas said.

He looked at her, and again, she looked around the house, looking at the floor, the roof, and the walls, trying to understand how that house was build and what materials it was made of.

"Wait… did you said that she was wearing nothing? So… you mean that she is…"

"Without nothing under that cape." Ankas complete the sentence.

"Than wait a minute here…" His uncle said while he got to his room.

"Here you go!" Ankas's uncle came back holding an old dress.

"You may us this room over here." Ankas's uncle said while opening a door to a room.

After a while she came back wearing the dress, she looked really beautiful.

"Did I wear it right?" Miku asked.

"Yes! It's perfectly right!" Ankas's uncle said.

"Seems good…" Ankas said.

After a while, Ankas showed to Miku a room where she could sleep, or if she was hungry, she could at least wait until dinner was ready.

"Hungry? Dinner?" Miku asked, with a confused air in her mind.

"C'mon! You don't even know how it feels to be hungry?" Ankas said.

***RONC***

Right after what Ankas said her stomach started to rumble.

"There! This is how it feels to be hungry." Ankas said.

"I see!" Miku said while putting her hands against her stomach to make an examination.

"_Seriously, where did this girl came from…?"_ Ankas thought to himself.

After that he came back to the kitchen, helping his uncle to prepare the dinner.

"So… What do you know about that girl?" Ankas's uncle asked.

"Not very much. The only thing that I know for sure is that she is not from these lands. I don't even know if she is human." Ankas said.

"What do you mean?"

"When we were in the forest, I asked her why she wasn't wearing any clothes and she asked me what clothes were. Besides, It's like that everything around here is a whole new word, like that she didn't know that any of this things existed. Also, when I asked where she came from, she said she couldn't tell. I asked her right now if she was hungry and she didn't know what hungry meant!"

"Well, this is getting kind of interesting, we'll concentrate on that tomorrow, now, make me a favor and start to clean those fishes."

Now they are all three of them together, sitting around the table and eating dinner. But Miku just kept staring at her plate, trying to understand what was that and what she was supposed to do with it.

"Aren't you going to eat?" Ankas asked.

"Eat?" Miku answered.

"Seriously? You don't even know how to eat?"

"Well…" Miku lowered her head a little, maybe she felt a little shamed.

"Well, first thing, grab the fork with your hand."

"Like this?"

"No, wait, like this" Ankas helped her to hold the fork in the right position,

"Now you use the fork to get some of the food on your plate to your mouth."

"Okay…" Miku got the food at her mouth.

"Now you just close your mouth and chew until it is in little pieces that you can swallow, and then, you swallow it! Couldn't be simpler!"

She then started chewing, and after she swallowed, she gives out a huge smile.

"Wow! It's delicious!"

"I'm glad you like it!" Ankas's uncles said.

"By the way, we weren't introduced yet, My name is Greenian Malthor. Nice to meet you!"

"I'm Hatsune Miku, nice to meet you too!" Miku lets out a big smile.

"Well… Miku isn't really a common name around these parts, isn't?" Malthor said.

"Could it be that you are from the north isles?"

"Well…" Miku just lowered her head down again, she really didn't wanted to answer. You could see on her face that she was hiding something.

"_North isles? What is he talking about?" _Ankas thought to himself.

"Well, but that is not really something that we should worry about, for now just make sure that you take care of yourself around here okay. And if you don't have anywhere to go, you'll be always welcome here, okay?" Malthor said with a smile on his face.

Miku stood there looking at him with a gleam in her eyes, she seemed really surprised that Malthor was being so kind to her.

"O- okay! Thank you!" Miku answered with a smile on her face.

"Just promise me something. Take care of that dress you are wearing okay? It was from my deceased wife, may she rest in peace." Malthor stayed quiet for some seconds.

"Your wife…? Okay, I'll promise!" Miku replied.

"_Well, at least she knows what a wife is. But now that I think about it… it's kind of strange that she knows such thing and still don't knows the basic things she need to do to stay alive…" _Ankas thought to himself.

They all finished dinner soon and everyone have gone to their bedrooms. Ankas closed the door, got his boots and shirt off and immediately jumped to his bad.

"Oh man… I'm exhausted!" Ankas said while pulling up his blanked that it was on his feet.

"_But still… Who is this girl? And why it looks like that she's guarding so many secrets?"_

After he thought that, another thought came to his mind, a part of the conversation he had with Maxis earlier.

"_**They said that they used to live here to protect, or, depending in the acts committed, punish the mortals…"**_

Ankas stared at the roof while he was thinking about the matter in question.

"Nah! That can't be possible, it was just some kind of fairy tale or something like that. Tomorrow I'll try to find some answers, tomorrow…" Ankas said before he finally got fall in sleep.


	3. Chapter 2: A vision of this world

Souls of Light

Chapter 2: A vision of this world

In the next morning the sunlight get's through the gaps of the old window in Ankas room, he slowly opened his eyes and started to prepare himself mentally for the hardworking day that it is to come. He tries to get up but a something heavy it's holding him down, he moved his head a little to his side and saw Miku, sleeping over his arm.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Ankas shouted before he falls on the ground.

"hmm… What happened?" Miku asks Ankas as she slowly gets up and scratch her eyes, she still seems sleepy.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY ROOM?" Ankas shouted.

"KYAAAAAH! Stop shouting!" Miku said to Ankas.

"Oh! Sorry, I… Wait a second! What are you doing here?"

"hmm…? What do you mean?"

"I mean here! In my room! Sleeping in my bed! With me!"

"Well, it's because I was scared by the dark and I couldn't stay there alone, so I came here!"

"_How can she talk about stuff like this so naturally…?" _Ankas thought to himself.

"Wait… you came to sleep here with me, because you were afraid of the dark?" Ankas asked.

Miku just nodded her head up and down in affirmation.

"*sigh* Okay just go back to your room and go change, we'll have breakfast soon."

"Change?" Miku asked.

"Change your cloths, you know, wear other cloths that are cleaner than this one." Ankas said to her.

Miku looked at her dress and tried to understand what he was saying.

"Okay!" She said really enthusiastic.

She didn't really understood at all since she started to undress herself in front of Ankas.

"WAIT WAIT WAIT! PUT YOU CLOTHES BACK ON! Ankas shouted.

"But… you said that I should change…" Miku said.

"Yes! But not here! Go back to your room and change there!"

"Okay…" Miku said and left the room.

"*sigh* _What the heck is in that girl's mind…?_" Ankas thought.

Some minutes later and Ankas was in the kitchen with his uncle…

"Uncle, at first I thought that that girl was from a foreign land, but now I only have two options."

"And what are they?" Malthor asked him.

"Or she is from another world or she is crazy."

"And what makes you think that?"

After Malthor said that Miku entered the kitchen, wearing another dress.

"Good morning! How did you sleep last night?" Malthor asked.

"Not very good, it was the first time I did something like that…"

"You mean, sleepy on a room of your own?"

"No, it was the first time I ever slept!" She answered with a happy smile in her face.

Ankas turned to his uncle with a serious face and whispered:

"_Do you believe in me now?"_

Malthor just nodded his head from side to side with a smile at his face, he actually though she was kidding.

"Okay than, Ankas, are you going to the city today?" Malthor asked.

"Yeah, I'm going to sharpen my hunting knives and get some more arrows at the city's armory, why?"

"Take Miku with you." Malthor said, with a simple smile at his face.

"WHAT?" Ankas exclaimed.

"Why not, she's not from here and she probably don't know the surroundings, and it looks like she could use a friendly hand here."

Ankas looked back to Miku that was sitting on the table eating breakfast, she was using a spoon to cut a fish.

"_There is_ n_o way I'm going to get in the city with a crazy girl like her!_" Ankas whispered to his uncle.

"C'mon now! She's a young beautiful lady, what do you have to lose?" Malthor said.

Ankas's face got incredibly red.

"Alright *sigh* fine, I'll take her…" Ankas said.

"Are you done eating? Cause I've got a lot to do." Ankas asked Miku.

"Okay, I'm done!" Miku said that, although her plate was still full. Ankas thought that she was so excited to see the town that she want to go as fast as she can.

"Then, we're going! Bye uncle!" Ankas said.

"Bye, have a safe trip to the city!" Malthor said.

"Bye!" Miku said to Malthor while shaking her hand.

As they got in their way to the town they passed through the village, where once again, Miku got amazed by the thing that were there, even though she had seeing all of it last night. They arrived at the town, it was day of bazaar and all kinds of merchants were there: artisans, artists, hunters, fruit sellers, farmers, blacksmiths, any kind of dealers you could imagine.

Miku got fascinated again, she looked like a six year old little girl that had never come to a town before. One of the things that really got her attention was a man that was paying one of the sellers with coins, she pulled Ankas by the sleeve and pointed to the man and asked:

"What's he doing?"

Ankas looked were she was pointing.

"What? That? He's paying the man for what he wanted."

"Paying?" She got more and more confused.

"Yes, I don't know where you're from but here everything has a price, and the price is paid with those coins." Ankas said.

"So, they can't take it unless they have those coins?"

"Yeah, it works like that."

After that she went quiet for a long time before they were reaching the town's blacksmith, were they found a little boy sitting, with his back against one of the buildings walls, his cloths were dirt and the boy had several injuries on his feet. Miku approached him, she crouched and looked at him.

"What's wrong? You look sad." Miku asked him.

"I'm hungry." The boy replied.

"Can't you get something for you to eat?"

"No…"

"Why not? You don't coins?"

The boy answered by nodding his head.

Ankas saw the whole thing and went to a fruit stand that was right forward to were the boy was sitting.

"Hey, how much does an apple cost?" Ankas asked the fruit seller.

"One silver coin." He answered.

"What? One silver coin? When did it got so expensive to pay for one apple?"

"Sorry sir, but the king has raised the taxes again, and I have a family to take care of, so…"

"Never mind that, here, take it!" Ankas said, flipping one silver coin with his thumb to the man.

He walked back to where the boy and Miku were.

"Here boy! No need to thank, okay?" Ankas said while he gave the boy the apple.

The boy didn't answer, even after receiving the apple, he just looked at the ground. Ankas got up.

"C'mon Miku, we have to go!" He said to her.

Miku followed him, she looked back when they were far from the boy and she saw him crying while eating the apple.

"Hey, Ankas! Whatis happening to the boy?" She asked.

"What do you mean?"

"His eyes started to leak."

"He's fine, he's just crying."

"Crying?"

Ankas stopped and rubbed the corners of his eyes with his finger, letting out a big sigh he turned to her.

"_There is no way this girl is from this world…_" He thought.

"You see, whenever a person gets sad or happy, sometimes they cry, it's a way to show their sentiments." He explained to her.

"So… does that means that he's happy?"

"Hum?"

"Does it means that he's happy because you gave him that apple?"

"Yeah…that, or he is sad thinking that might be the last meal that he's going to have in his life…" Ankas said, he looked at the poor boy that was devouring that apple.

"Hun?" Miku looked confused.

"Never mind that… let's keep going, it's not too far now." Ankas said, trying to change the subject.

They walked some more steps and in no time they were in front of the town's blacksmith. Ankas goes in followed by Miku.

"Hey there, anybody home?" Ankas asked.

Miku looked around at the blacksmith, she was wondering what all of those pointy things where used for.

After a while a man appeared, he had a big hammer in his hand and a small beard, he was pretty big and strong, he approached Ankas and gave him a hand shake.

"Long time no see kid!" He said

"It sure is, Godlin!" Ankas answered back.

"And who is this lovely lady? You're new girlfriend perhaps?" Godlin said while poking Ankas in the arm with his elbow.

"Wha- No she's not!" Ankas said, with his face all red again.

"Hmm…? What is girlfriend, is it food?" Miku asked.

"Hun?" Godlin looked confused.

Ankas pulled Godlin close to him by his neck with his arm and whispered to him.

"_Just keep calm, I found her yesterday at the forest, I think she has some kind of amnesia, and this is a strong one since she can't remember anything at all…_"

"_So that's why she…_" Godlin said.

"_Exactly!_" Ankas answered back.

"What are you two talking about?" Miku asked.

Both of them got turned back to her direction immediately.

"Nothing at all!" They said while scratching their heads and looking really suspicious.

"Anyway, my name is Alterian Godlin, nice to meet you!" Said Godlin.

"I'm Hatsune Miku, nice to meet you!" Miku answered.

"Hatsune… Miku?" Godlin asked.

"Yeah, that's another thing, with a name like that we think she's not from over here, she must be from a land over-seas…" Ankas said to him.

"Hmm… I see. Anyway, what can I do for you?" Golding asked.

"Well, I need you to sharpen some knives and I also need some arrows, metal points please." Ankas said.

Godlin took a good look at the knives…

"Well, the knives are going to be cheap, about three silver coins, but the arrows with metal points, that's going to cost you a little more…"

"How much?" Ankas asked.

"At least five silver coins for each."

"WHAT?" Ankas was shocked.

"Sorry boy, but with the new taxes that the king has raised, it is hard to maintain the business and have the proper life conditions at the same time."

"Well… couldn't you chose just one of them?" Ankas said, kidding of course.

Godlin looked back at him.

"Okay, okay… just fix the knives, I guess I'll go hunting with wooden arrows this month, and in the next if that stupid king continues to raise the taxes all the time…" Ankas added.

"The… king?" Miku asked.

"Yes, he is the man that controls the kingdom, he right the laws and does pretty much what he wants… Don't you have a leader were you came from?"

"Not really, we are all equal to each other and decide things together!" Miku answered with a smile.

"Well, lucky you, at least you don't have to pay taxes every month and try to survive with the rest that is left, right?" Ankas asked her.

"Not really, we don't have coins there too…" She said.

"_No commercial system? What a weird kingdom…_" Ankas thought.

As they continue the conversation a merchant entered the blacksmith's place, he had a long stick with were tied up several dead birds.

"Hey Godlin, you called me?" The merchant asked.

"Oh yes! Here my friend, come with me and we'll negociate.

The man goes behind the balcony to a backroom, he passed by Ankas and Miku, she take a good look at the birds.

"Hey, Ankas!" Miku says.

"What?" Ankas asked.

"Why were does birds different?"

"Different how?"

"I mean, the birds that I saw yesterday were singing and flying, those were hanging and quite… Were they sleeping?"

"No, they're dead?"

"Dead?"

"You mean you don't know what is to be dead?"

"No…"

"Well, it's like an eternal sleep…" Ankas looked deeply into the ground and stood quiet for some time."

"So they are sleeping!" Miku said.

"No- It's not like that!" Ankas said that.

"How is it then?" Miku asked.

"Well, you see, their heart doesn't beat anymore, and they don't breath, they have no… life left in them…" Once again, Ankas looked deeply into the ground.

Ankas concentration was broken by the sound of crying, he looked over Miku and saw her eyes lost in an overflowing river of tears.

"Why are you… crying?" Ankas asked her.

"It because, it fells sad, to know that they can't live anymore…" Miku says while she tries to clean her tears with her sleeves.

"You…" Ankas was surprised by her reaction, now he was more than ever that she was not form this world…

"Hey Ankas, here are you're-" Godlin came out of the back door with Ankas's knives, he went quiet when he saw Ankas hugging Miku to calm her down.

"What happened?" Godlin asked.

"Nothing… she's going to be fine… do you have my knives done?" Ankas asked.

"Y- yeah! Here they are." Goldin handed over the knives.

Ankas paid for the job made by Goblin and left the place still hugging Miku.

At half of the way back to the village he let her go and asks her:

"Are you calming down now?"

"Yeah *sniff* I think I'm better *sniff* *sniff*" She says as she cleans her tears.

"What… was that? *sniff* The thing you made…" Miku asked.

"What? That? It was a hug." Ankas said.

"A *sniff* hug?"

"Yeah, sometimes people needs hugs to feel better when they are sad, it did calmed you down, didn't?"

"Yes… Thank you!" Miku said whit a smile.

Ankas saw her face and his heart started beating fast.

"Y- you're welcome!" Ankas said.

He turned around and trying to calm himself down, thinking of the following thoughts:

"_Calm down now Ankas! You don't even know if she is from this world, not even if she's human!_"

"Hey… Are you alright?" Miku asked. She was next by his side.

"WAAAAAAA?" Ankas let out a scream from the scare.

"KYAAAAAAAHHHH! Wha- what was that for?" Miku asked, angry with Ankas reaction.

"You- you scared me!" Ankas said.

"Why would I scare you when I was with you the whole time?" Miku asked.

Ankas looked at her with an embarrassed face, he tried to hide by looking at the side and pulling his hair down with one of his hands. He calmed down and talked to her again.

"Well, whatever, let's just keep moving, okay?" Ankas said, and he started walking again but stopped because he heard Miku sneeze.

"Are you alright?" Ankas asked.

"I don't know… *Atchoo*!"

"You must have got a cold, here, cover yourself with this." Anakas said while covering her shoulders with his cape and closing it around her neck.

"Thanks!, What are these strange sensations?"

"You were cold…"

"Cold?"

"Yeah, that's the sensation you were felling before, now, let's go back, it's almost dark now."

As they go back all the way from the town to the village Miku continued to ask weird questions that any normal human being would know, even children could answer her questions. This only made Ankas more and more curious about this blue haired girl's origins.

"Hey ankas, what were you doing at the forest when you found me?" Miku asked.

"Me? I was hunting." Ankas answered.

"Hunting? You mean the same thing that that man did to get the birds?"

"Yes."

As Ankas proceeded he felt that something was missing, the sound of Miku's footsteps right behind him, he turned and saw Miku with her head down.

"Why…?" Miku said.

"Hun?"

"Why do you do that?" Miku looked at him.

Ankas saw that her eyes were watery, she was almost starting to cry again.

"Because, there is no other way…" Ankas said.

"What do you mean?" Miku asked.

"Well, you see, my uncles farm is the only way of alimentation for us, even like that it is not sufficient to feed us because most of the plantation goes to the king, we can only survive the first days of the month with what is left, the other rest of the month I hunt so we don't starve to death, and some of them I sell at the bazaar, it's the only way we can live…" Anka said.

"So… it is all the kings fault?"

"Hun?"

"If the king wasn't such a bad person, does this means that people wouldn't suffer and the animals wouldn't needed to die?"

"I think it wasn't going to work that way, but I guess a lot of animals could be saved."

"So that's it, I want to talk to the king!" Miku exclaimed.

"Miku, I do share the same idea as you, but it's not that simple…"

"Why not? WHY SHOULD SO MANY SUFFER WHILE HE LIVES A HAPPY LIFE?" Miku started shouting at Ankas.

"Miku…"

"It's not fare… it's not… fare…" Miku started to cry again.

Ankas slowly hugs her and passed a few minutes to calm her down again.

"Let's just go back home and rest a little, okay?"

She nodded her head up and down in affirmation.

When they got back home, Miku entered her room to change her dress, she wet it because she cried so much, and Ankas goes to the kitchen to help his uncle with dinner.

"So, what do you think?" Malthor asked.

"I guess… you're right about one thing…" Anakas answered.

"Hmm?"

"I may not know from where she is but… she could use a friendly hand…"

After that Malthor got quiet and they started preparing the birds that Ankas had hunted some days before.

"Could you pass me some leeks?" Ankas asked.

"What? You never liked them." Malthor answered.

"It's not for me, it's for Miku, I think she won't like meat after what happened today."

Malthor watched as Ankas made a salad with the leeks, and he thought:

"_Don't worry brother, you're son is doing great, you and Ariana raised him well…I_"

An hour later and Miku got out of her room, and everyone sit at the table, when was tome to get the food she made an ugly face to the cooked birds.

"Hey, try this!" Ankas said as he passed her the bowl of Leek salad.

"What is this?" Miku asked.

"Don't worry, it's not an animal, it's a vegetal, try ir."

She got a small portion in her plate and took a bite, a smile appeared at her face as she realized how good it tasted.

"Delicious!" Miku said.

"Good thing you like it!" Malthor said.

"Could I have some more? Please! Please!" Miku said with a certain glow in her eyes to Ankas.

"Hun… Sure, why not?" Ankas said as he passed the salad bowl back to her.

She turned the whole thing in her plate and started eating it.

"She sure eat a lot hun?" Malthor said.

And once again Miku got doubts in Ankas head, for him, now, she's is surely not from this world.


	4. Chapter 3: Unknown danger

Souls of Light

Chapter 3: Unknown danger

The next morning came with the rooster crowing, and just as the other morning, Ankas wakes up with Miku by his side.

"WAAAAHHHHHH!" Ankas falls on the floor.

"Good morning!" Miku said to Ankas with a smile on her face.

"What are you doing in my room again?"

"I was scared by the dark!"

"Didn't we talk about this already?"

"But…I'm scared…" Miku said as she lowered her head.

"Uff… never mind, just tell me when you get to sleep here so I get another mattress to sleep in."

"Okay…"

Afterwards they get their breakfast and as Ankas don't need to go hunting today and doesn't have any business in the town he helps his uncle with the plantation. While he was digging holes he looks at the side and saw Miku having fun with the children of the village…

"Hey, Miku-Chan! Wanna play ball with us?" One of the kids asked.

"How do you play ball?" MIku asked confused.

"You just kick it to the person next to you, here! We'll show you!" The kid said.

They made a circle and started to kick the ball.

"Here Miku-chan, catch!" The kid kicks the ball to Miku.

When Miku prepare to kick the ball back she kick the air while the ball pass by her completely and she falls on the ground.

"Miku-chan! Are you okay?" All the kids shouted and ran to her aid.

"I'm fine! I just hurt my knee a little…" She said.

The ball goes to Ankas.

"Hey! Ankas-kun, kick it here!" One of the kids shouted.

"Okay! Here goes!" Ankas said.

He kicked the ball up and while she was in the air he kicked back to the kids. Miku got really impressed.

His uncle got close to him and whispered:

"_Good job! Keep impressing her and you'll have her heart in no time!_"

"_What the hell are you talking about!?_" Ankas answered back, angrily.

"Don't worry, I was just kidding! Ha ha ha…" Said his uncle.

Ankas turned back to the kids and saw Miku playing with them, and it looks like that she has been well received by the rest of the people in the village, maybe it was her innocent nature, but Ankas still could not understand how could they simply accept someone that was so weird.

A couple of hours later, a woman attracted the attention of the village's people…

"Please! Someone help me!" The woman was shouting.

"What is going on?" Ankas said.

"I don't know, you better check it out, go on, I can take care of the plantation now." Melthor said.

Ankas followed the woman's screams for help, he finally found her, with some other young man from the village.

"Ankas!" One of the men said.

"Arrugah! What happened?" Ankas asked.

"We are trying to calm her down to understand the situation, but the only thing she says is: Please help! I can't find him anywhere!" Arrugah said.

Ankas walked in front of the woman that was with her knees on the dirt, she looked at the ground and it wouldn't stop crying and shouting for help. Ankas kneeled down and grabbed her by the shoulders, he looked at her eyes and said:

"Please, calm down now, okay? We're trying to help you, but we can't until you calm down and tell us what's going on."

She than closed her eyes, lowered her head and took a deep breath.

"Now, tell me what's going on." Ankas said.

"My son, I was cocking and I didn't see the time when he got out, when I go looking from him my neighbor said that he entered the forest, I've gone with him and other people from the village to look for them but we didn't found him and I came running back here to ask for help, please, you gotta find him!" The woman starts to cry again.

Ankas gets up and look at Arrugah and the other youngsters.

"Get your bows and follow me!" He said.

The others ran back to their homes and prepared themselves, so did ankas.

When he got home Miku was helping Melthor making the dinner.

"What's going on?" Melthor asked.

"One of the village's kids is missing, me and the other hunters will get into the forest to look for him." Ankas said, while he opened a chest on the chicken were there was his bows and some wooden arrows he made.

"Why, there's no one looking for him?"

"There are, but they are not enough."

"Are you sure? It's almost night time, it's gonna be pretty dangerous."

"I know, that's why I'm getting my bow and arrows and my knife with me."

Ankas turned and opened the door, but before he could close it he's uncle said:

"Then take Miku with you as well."

"WHAAAAAT?" Ankas said.

"Why not? Didn't you just said that they need more people for the search?"

"Yeah… But you said that it's gonna be pretty dangerous! Didn't you?" Ankas said, trying to make his uncle to give up on the idea.

"Don't worry, you'll be with her the whole time, will you not?"

A minute of silence passed…

"Okay… Come on Miku, we need to hurry!"

"Yes!" Miku answered getting up from the chair.

As they traveled to the forest Ankas though:

"_What the hell does my uncle have in his head?_"

Miku kept herself always close to Ankas since she was always so much afraid of the dark. Once they got to the forest borders Miku looked at the forest and she saw how dark it was.

"Ankas… I'm scared!" Miku said while she hugged his arm.

Ankas got red and looked around, the other youngsters were letting out a small laugh, but that didn't really upset him up.

"It's fine, just stay close alright?" He asked her.

She answered by nodding her head up and down.

Ankas turned to the others and said:

"You guys all know that this forest gets really dangerous at this time, the creatures of the night get out to hunt and it's also difficult to see to since the forest trees won't let the moonlight get through, so watch out for wolves and bears, and also look were you are stepping! Everyone's ready?"

"Yes!" The youngsters answered.

After that they entered the forest. Some seconds later Ankas realized that Miku started to squeeze his arm more and more.

"I already said that it's alright!" Ankas said.

"No… It's not that…" Miku said while putting her hand on her head.

"What is it then?"

"My head… It hurts…!" Miku falls to the ground, she looked to be in an unimaginable pain.

"Miku! Hey Miku! Are you alright!" Ankas shouted, trying to help her.

"Careful Ankas… behind you!" Miku tried to say while in pain.

When Ankas turned around a strange creature jumped from the bushes, it had dark skin, it was big, the sounds it make appeared to be like a feline and a dense black smoke appeared to be getting out of its body.

"What the-!" Ankas said surprised.

He immediately pulled his bow back with an arrow on it and aimed at the creature while the creature tried to intimidate him showing his fangs and roaring at him.

"Ankas… Be careful… It's… dangerous…" Miku tries to warn Ankas, while she's still on the ground, with her head in pain.

"Don't worry Miku, I'll be careful… I just need to know what the hell is that thing."


	5. Chapter 4: The beast of darkness

Souls of Light

Chapter 4: The beast of darkness

The night was cold and the forest is sunk into darkness, the stench of death spreads around it borders as a strange creature of the night appears before Ankas. Miku seemed somehow wounded by the beast, she lays at the ground as she can't think strait because of the feeling that her head is going to explode at any minute. Now, Ankas face this demon of the night, it fangs are long and sharp and its roar is strong and intimidating, but it was not enough to make Ankas move away from where he was, if he did that, he would have a free way to get to Miku, and Ankas started to think that that was exactly what he was trying to do.

For a minute everything went quiet, it felt like every living being on the land was dead, Ankas fixes his eyes with the beast's, he prepares his bow, and slowly pulls back his arrow, the moment is really tense…

***CRACK***

The sound of a branch cracking interrupts the eye contact and the beast jumps on Ankas, he falls on the ground with the beast on top of him, Ankas pulls his knife and tries to stab the beast, but it appears to have no effect. The blade goes through the beast as if its body was made of smoke, a dense, very dark smoke.

"An… kas…!" Miku tried to help him, but she was unable to move a muscle.

The beast stared at Ankas eyes, as if it was looking to his own soul, the beast than approached his face very slowly, and before he even knew it, the beast opened its mouth, but it wasn't eating him. He felt as if all the life in his body was been dragged away, as if something was pulling his soul form his own body, he couldn't breathe and his vision was getting dark quickly.

"Ankas!" Miku shouted, trying to keep him conscious.

Everything looked lost, until a torch came flying and landed next to Ankas and the beast, and almost as immediately, the beast jumped off Ankas interrupting that anguish that Ankas was feeling for only some seconds, but still, it was a terrifying sensation.

"Ankas!" Arrugah said, he was with the others.

When they approached with their torches the beast seemed to be afraid and ran away, Arrugah came to Ankas to see if he's okay.

"Don't worry about me, see if Miku is okay!" Ankas said.

They go check on Miku, too see if she was fine, her head still hurts, but she can walk now.

"Did you found the boy?" Ankas asked.

"Yes, we found him cornered in a tree, when we asked him what happened he kept quiet and shaking in fear, like he had seen some kind of monster. We founded strange that you two didn't had showed up yet so we came back looking for you, that's when we saw you fighting that thing." Arrugah said.

They got back to the village and the boy was on his mother's arms, he looked petrified, the mother was trying to ask him what he saw, what was he so afraid of, but the boy said nothing.

Ankas grabbed a stick that was on the ground and drawn it on the ground, when he finished he asked the boy:

"It was this that scared you?"

The boy moved his head slowly to where the drawing was, when he saw it, he pointed at it and started to scream in fear, he only stopped when his mother covered his face.

"Well, now we know what it's happening here." Ankas said.

Later on the villager leaders gathered in the center of the village, Ankas was the leader of the hunting party, Miku was with him there, she was still feeling sick.

"What do we do now?" One of the villagers asked.

"What do you think? We hunt him down!" The other villager said.

"We can't we don't even know if this thing can be killed easily, and we don't know where his lair is. The best thing we can do is to protect the village from it." Ankas said it.

"But how? How can we do that?" One of the villagers asked.

"Light…" Miku murmured.

The others looked at her.

"What?" Ankas asked.

"He's afraid of the light, if you keep the village clear, he won't come close." Miku said.

"And you want us to believe in an outsider?" One of the villagers said.

"Do you have a better idea?" Melthor asked him.

The villager hesitated to talk again and sit back on the bench.

"Okay, for now let us follow her tip, put torches around the village, make it as bright as possible!" Melthor ordered.

After he ordered everyone started to dig on the ground around the village to put some posts with torches. They used almost all the anima lard they had to set so many torches on fire. An hour later and everything was so clear as the sun at midday.

"I think we'll be safe… for now." Ankas said.

"What do you have in mind?" Melthor asked him.

"I met with Maxis at the forest some days ago, he said he was the apprentice of a great mage, maybe he know something that can destroy that thing." Ankas answered.

"Fine, you better go tomorrow morning see if you can find him, and take some hunters with you just for precaution." Melthor said.

"Okay!" Ankas answered.

"I'll go with you!" Miku said.

"No, you'll be safer here at the village." Ankas said.

"But…!" Miku said, she was interrupted by Melthor.

"He's right! You better not get out of here with that thing around, especially if it is after you." Melthor said.

Miku gave up and just looked down quietly.

Some of the man of the village kept guard around the village, a strange howl could be heard all night around the village, it didn't sounded like a wolf, it was much stronger than that.

In the morning Ankas left with other four youngsters that were in his hunting party.

"Be careful." Miku said.

Ankas looked to the side, he was blushing.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine…" He answered.

The mounted their horses and ride through the forest, trying to get to the major city of Cartelamar, maybe there they would found some information about his childhood friend Maxis.

While they were going away Miku watched with her hand against her chest, she knows in her heart that they're in dangerous, she never wanted them to live.

"Don't worry, Ankas is very strong, just believe in him and he'll be back safe." Melthor said.

She took a deep breath and said:

"Okay! I'll believe him."

She said those words letting out a smile of confidence and thrusting in him, she knew now that he'll be back.


	6. Chapter 5: Ridding to Kussrauhn

Souls of Light

Chapter 5: Ridding to Kussrauhn

Ankas and the youngster hunters of the village are ridding to Kussrauhn, one of the great commercial cities in the Karhulman kingdom, to meet with Maxis, an old friend from Ankas childhood who said to be learning magic with one of the greatest wizards of the land, "glass eye" Gilldendart.

When they where half away from the city they stopped because of a strange mudslide that happened and prevented them from continuing on the road ahead.

"What do we do now Ankas?" One of the youngsters asked.

"Well, I guess we'll have to go to the forest." He said while looking at the woods onto the side of the road.

"But Ankas! What about that thing that lives in there?" Arrugah asked.

"Don't worry, we just need to avoid the dark parts of the forest, if anything happens, we just need to rush back to the road." Ankas said.

They entered the forest but even though Ankas himself said that everything was going to be fine, the moment he entered the forest mounted in his horse he felt something was wrong, it felt like if he was being watched.

They proceeded through the forest with no problem at all, but Ankas was still feeling that strange sensation.

"Hey Ankas! We can't continue!" One of the youngsters said to him.

As he heard that, he immediately turn his head back to the front and saw that there was a huge bolder in the way.

"What do we do now?" Arrugah asked.

"We have no choice now." Ankas answered as he looks to the dense part of the forest, where no sunshine reaches the ground, the most obscure part of the forest.

He could hear the young hunters talking behind his back, asking each other if it was a good decision to follow his lead. Arrugah came in the middle of their conversation and said:

"Everybody shut up! We followed Ankas here knowing the risks, if any of you is cowardly enough, please go back to the village and hide under your beds!"

He turned back to Ankas.

"Thanks!" Ankas whispered for him.

"No problem." Arrugah whispered back.

"Okay everyone, get your bows and arrows ready and light your torches up, the tip we heard is that this thing is weak against light so let's make sure that we get in there the brighter we can." Ankas said to them and everyone got ready.

They started moving into the dark part of the, as they proceed, Ankas started to feel a strange sensation again, not that one of being watched but a more deep one, it feels almost as if someone could read his thoughts. The others follow him, they start to feel uncomfortable, thinking of the strange creature that might be around them.

"_Come to me…_" Ankas heard someone whispering to him, it sounded like an old man's voice, but with a dark sinister tone.

"Did you hear that?" Ankas stopped his horse and asked Arrugah that was right behind him.

"Her what?" Arrugah asked.

Ankas looked around and didn't saw anything.

"Never mind, let's continue moving." Ankas said to Arrugah.

They started moving again, but after a few moments Ankas heard that voice again:

"_Come to me… Bring the spirirt to me…_" This time the voice was stronger than before, it felt like it was getting angry and impatient.

"There! Didn't you hear that?" Ankas asked Arrugah again.

"Hear what?" Arrugah asked.

Ankas put his hands on his ears and tries to stop the voice, but it keeps going to his head.

"Are you okay?" Arrugah asked.

"I'm fine, I just need to get out of this damn forest. It's getting on my nerves." Ankas said.

While they were talking one of the hunters approached them. Arrugah saw him and asked.

"What is it? Anything wrong back there?"

"We want to know what is going on." The boy was firm and straight when he asked.

"There's nothing wrong, now get back in the line!" Arrugah said, with a higher tone.

"Don't tell us there's nothing wrong! You're the ones that brought us to this place, if there is anything wrong tell us right now!" They boy started shouting with Arrugah.

While Arrugah argues with one of the hunters Ankas starts to feel that sensation he was having transforming into pain, he's head was feeling heavier and a huge pressure started to appear. He was still trying to concentrate on his surroundings to see if that was being caused by someone or something nearby when he suddenly looked to Arrugah and the boy that were arguing.

"So, if you have anything to be said, just tell us now! I'm not going to keep following him if he keeps telling little secrets to you, and neither the others will!" The boy shouted to Arrugah.

"You little…!" Arrugah said, preparing to give the boy a punch to the face.

Ankas looked at the ground around the boy's horse and saw that there was a tree root going slowly in his direction.

"Watch out!" Ankas shouted.

"Hun?" That was the only thing he could say before he was grabbed by that root.

The root dragged him to the ground and started pulling him away from the others, away from the light.

"Help! Save me!" The boy started shouting.

The others tried to get to him getting off their horses, but they wouldn't make in time.

"Hang on!" Ankas said as he aims he's bow to the root and shoots and arrow.

He hits the root perfectly, it goes through it and it and drills the ground, it made the root stop and the others tried to save him now. They were trying to pull him but the root wouldn't let go of the boy's leg.

"Out of the way!" Arrugah shouted.

He pulled a big hammer that he had on his bag that was at the side of his horse and in one slash cuts the root. When he cuts the root a loud and strong roar was heard and the root immediately retreats back into the forest's darkness, when it goes always though it let out a strange dark smoke that floats in the air for some seconds and afterwards disappears. Ankas noticed that that dark smoke was the same that was coming out of the creatures body that attacked him last night.

"Are you okay?" Arrugah asked the boy.

He nodded his head in approval.

"Hey! Thanks." He said to Ankas.

"No problem." Ankas answred back.

After he said that the ground started shaking and a strong sound could be heard coming from the forest's heart, it looked like stomps, and by the sound that they were making, it was something big.

"We can continue this later, now everyone get in your horses and follow me to out of this forest!" Ankas said.

And so they did. They were running away, riding their horses but it felt like they weren't going to make in time, the stomps were getting closer and closer. Ankas looked behind and out of some bushes they had just passed that evil creature jumps out and goes after them again, the same creature that attacked him last night.

"_**You came to finish the job, didn't you?**_" Ankas thought.

They continued to run as fast as they could from that creature, and after some seconds Arrugah said:

"Ankas look! The road!"

Ankas saw the road outside the forest, it was full of light and it was the safest place at the moment.

"Everyone, make a boost for it, I'll try to keep him distracted!" Ankas said to them.

"What are you talking about?" Arrugah asked.

"He's after me! Don't worry, just thrust me!" Ankas answered him.

He then followed his orders and commands the others to the safety of the road. He looks behind and sees Ankas ridding his horse to the left and that huge creature going right after him.

Ankas tries to foil the creature but it is too hard, the damn thing is almost reaching for him, when he saw the road just a fell meters away from him, he knew he wasn't gonna make it in time, so he got up on the saddle on his horse and prepares to jump. He jumps and his body reaches the sunlight, but before he can reach the ground he feels something behind his head, he looked down and saw that he was still in the air, he tried to reach the back of his head with his hands to know what had happened and he feels something like a long tube that had just entered his head, it was the creature's tail that had just penetrated his head. Ankas feels this huge pressure inside his head, and with it, a huge pain.

"_Give me…_" It was that strange voice again.

"Wha-" Ankas said.

"_Give me… the spirit…_" The voice demanded.

While Ankas was being attacked by the dark beast, back at the village Miku was helping the other girls with some chores, she was putting clothes on the clothesline when she suddenly felt something in her head. She kneels down and starts saying:

"No! Let him go!"

The other girls looked at her and came to her.

"Miku-chan! What's wrong?" One of them asked her.

But she kept repeating:

"Get away from him! Let him go!"

The girls don't know what to do, they try to comfort her taking her back to her room and putting her in her bed.

While this happens, Ankas opened his eyes, just as if he was having a dream, but he can't see nothing, he tries to move but it feels that he's body is being by something, or dormant because he couldn't move his head either, looking at one direction the whole time.

"_Give me the spirit._" The voice he was hearing before, this time it was much clearer.

"What? Who's there?" Ankas said.

In the middle of the darkness a wall of fire appeared and from there a strange being came out, it was tall and skeletal, his body was made by nothing more than a dark dense smoke, much more dense than the creature one, he has a long hair that goes from the top of his head to the ground. He slowly approached Ankas, step by step, when he got close enough he raised his head and looked at him. Ankas took a good look at his face, except that he didn't had a face, it was just a clean plain head covered with dark smoke, and suddenly the smoked moved in a way that made a face, and white marks filed those gaps created by the smoke, it looked close to a face, but not a human one, it looked more like a kids drawing, he had two small round white eyes and a large, but slightly closed mouth. The being wasn't showing any kind of sentiments.

He stretched his open hand with long skinny fingers to Ankas and said:

"Give me the spirit."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Ankas answered.

The being's face changed from a blankly one to an angry one.

"Guuh-" Ankas felt a huge pressure in his heart.

"Give me the spirit!" The being started to shout at Ankas.

Ankas can't hear him, not with all the pain his feeling, the only thing that he could thought in a situation like this was if he was going to get out of this alive, when suddenly a familiar voice said:

"Let him go!"

Ankas opened his eyes and saw that face covered by the smoke slowly disappear as he hears the being screaming in pain, he saw that another being was forming in the middle of the dark, but this being was bright, so bright the darkness started to run away from it. He couldn't see a face, but he saw the silhouette of a girl with long hair.

"You…" Ankas said, before he closed his eyes.

When Ankas opened his eyes again, he was at the ground surrounded by the youngsters while Arrugah was waving his axe at the dark creature that was hidden himself in the shadows of the forest shouting:

"Back off beast! Back off!"

The creature soon gives up and runs back to the forest's center. The youngster help Ankas get up.

"Hey, are you okay Ankas?" Arrugah asked.

"What happened?" Ankas aksed.

"I don't know for sure, but when we saw it that thing was going something to you, it looked like it was sucking the life out of you, from your mouth, I looked like as if it was eating your soul or something, did anything happened while you passed out?" Arrugah said.

"A lot of things happened, how much time was I unconscious for?" Ankas asked.

"just five seconds, why?"

"It felt like hours, I'll tale you everything when we get to Kussrauhn." Ankas said.

He got up, mounted on his horse and they ride the road to Kussrauhn.

In the village Miku suddenly wakes and the girls that were in the room check on her to see if she is okay.

"Miku-chan! Are you feeling alright?" They asked.

But they surprised themselves when they see she was smiling.

"Miku-chan, why are you smiling?" One of them asked.

"Because he's okay now, he's okay…" She said.

She than falls asleep and the other girls were clueless about what she said.

After a whole day riding they finally made it, they looked over a hill the great city of Kussrahun.

"Let's go!" Ankas said it.

They then followed him to the gates of the city, and Ankas was ridding his horse as fast as he could, wondering if he was going to find Maxis in time to resolve that situation, before any other person gets hurt by that creature of the darkness


	7. Chapter 6: A lead to the ancient past

Souls of Light

Chapter 6: A lead to the ancient past

Ankas and the other youngsters have reached their destination, the great city of Kussrauhn. They passed through the main gate and entered the city, even though it was one of the major commercial cities in the kingdom of Karhulman, the streets were filled with poor people, many with them were sick, dying because of the strong plague that is ruining the land.

Ankas passed with the others by long streets that were full of people affected by the plague, in one of them a little girl dressing a small dress that was covered in mud pulled his sleeve and asked:

"Sir! Please, can you spare some coins so I can buy some medicine for my mom?"

"What happened to the public hospitals? Don't they give free medicine for the plague?" Ankas asked her.

"Not anymore sir, the hospitals are so full of people because of the plague that they ran out of medicine and the next shipment will be delivered here only three weeks from now on, the only ones that have medicine in the town now are the merchants."

Ankas sighed. He reached his hand to his pocket and pulled a gold coin he had kept for a long time now.

"Bu-but sir! This is too much! I only needed some silver coins!" The girl said, surprised.

"You're mother is contaminated by the plague, sin's she?" Ankas asked.

"Y-yes!"

"If what you tell is true, some silver coins won't be enough to medicine for three weeks, take care of your mother with this until the new shipment of medicine gets to the hospital, okay?"

The girl's eyes get watery.

"Yes sir!" The girl said, she runs back to her mother after that.

They continued riding around the streets, asking everyone in town for Gilldendart's address. After some minutes they finally founded, it was a big old house, it looked like the windows weren't washed in a long time and there was dust at the balcony.

"***knock knock*** Is there somebody home?" Ankas asked, but no one answered.

He gently pushed the door and it opened.

"Are you sure it is okay for us to enter like this?" Arrugah asked.

"Relax, we are here to talk to him anyway, aren't we?" Ankas answered.

They walked In and founded what was possibly the most bizarre living room that could ever exist. There are a lot of shelves with jars on them that contains countless dead creatures inside, many of them were reptiles and insects, there was also a lot of organs from farming animals like pigs, cows and even horses, just by seeing those things, Ankas was already thinking about throwing up.

"_Is someone there?_" Someone said.

The voice came from upstairs, it's coming down one step at a time, very slow. They looked at the stairs and saw the man coming down with an old wooden staff, he looked like an old man with long gray hair, he had a smoking pipe at one hand and in the other the wooden staff. He looked at Ankas and the others and Ankas noticed how just one of his eyes was moving.

"Glass eye Guilldendart?" Ankas asked.

"Well, it seems that you already know my name, but I still doesn't know yours…" Guilldendart said.

"My name is Ankas, were here to ask for your help."

"My help?"

"Yes, we came from a village west of Amaludia, and we're being attacked recently by a strange creature that lives in the forest near the village.

"Is that so? And what does that creature looked like?"

"It looked like a big tiger, but it was all black and it had a strange black smoke that was coming out of its body."

When Ankas described the creature Guilldendart's eyes widened.

"Are you sure of that?" Guilldendart said, in a more serious tone.

"Yes, it also attacked us when we were on our way here." Ankas answered.

Guilldendart walked to the corner and starts thinking with one hand on his chin and the other on his back.

"If that's the case… Maxis, get down here!" Guilldendart shouted to the stairs.

"_I can't! I'm busy with a new potion I'm making here!_" Maxis shouted back.

"Do that later, I need you to come here now!"

"_Okay, okay! I'm coming!_"

Maxis came down and saw Ankas.

"Ankas! Hey there. What you're doing here?" Maxis asked.

"So, you know each other?" Gilldendart asked Maxis.

"Yes, when we were kids we lived in the same village." Maxis said.

"I see… Anyway, let's us not waste our time here. Ankas, please show Maxis were you where attacked by the beast, in the meanwhile I'll search for what exactly is the beast you speak of." Guilldendart said.

They moved out of the city to the place where Ankas was attacked by the beast. In the way Maxis started to talk with Ankas.

"So Ankas, what exactly is going on?" Maxis asked.

"Well, to begin with, after we talked that day I found a girl that was unconscious on the ground and refuses to say from where she is neither why she is here and a strange beast attacked us some days ago in the forest next to our village, and it also followed us here." Ankas said.

"Do you think that the girl might be related with the beast?"

"Maybe, she even knew that the creature was weak against light."

"Weak against light you say…" Maxis thought quietly for some minutes.

After some minutes they have reached the part of the road that they were attacked by the beast. They could still see the marks of the beast's paws at the dirt inside the forest's border.

"Here we are." Ankas said.

Maxis approached next to the paws marks of the beast. He reached his hand inside a bag that he had and pulled out a strange pair of goggles, he put them on and looked that the marks.

"I see…" Maxis said.

He reached for his bag again and pulled out a canteen, he opened it and it started to make a strange sound, like if it was sucking the air. Ankas and the others founded this strange, but didn't want to ask why he was doing that, they didn't really want to know.

"Well, that's it, we can go back now!" Maxis said as he pulled off his goggles.

"That's it?" Ankas asked.

"What did you expect? A strange ritual where I started to talk in ancient languages and dance around while shaking an old wooden staff?"

"Well… now that you said it, I actually was…"

"You're thinking about the magicians of the old times my friend."

"Well, so let's go back." Arrugah said.

They rode back to Kussrauhn, to the house of Guilldendart.

"Tadaima!" Maxis said.

"So, was you able to gather it?" Guilldendart asked Maxis.

"Right here!" He pulled that strange canteen.

"You youngsters and you're crazy inventions! In my time we needed to collect all of it with a glass bottle!" Guilldendart said, while slowly walking in the direction of a big caldron in the middle of the living room. It was strange, since Ankas didn't noticed that there was a caldron in the first place.

"Yeah, sure! It only took you hours to collect it! Sorry old man, but the world is for the young ones!" Maxis said.

Guilldendart lowered his head, sighs and nods his head from side to side in disapproval.

"Anyway, you were able to gather it, right?" Guilldendart asked.

"Yeah! It's right here!" Maxis said.

Ankas gets in the middle of the conversation trying to understand what they are talking about.

"Excuse me, but what are you talking about? He didn't collect anything, he only swung that thing around in the air."

Guilldendart and Maxis looked at each other.

"Come close Ankas." Said Guilldendart.

Ankas walked next to the caldron, where Gilldendart was. Guilldendart then splashes some of the strange water that was in the caldron in Ankas eyes.

"HAAAA! My eyes!" Ankas shouted.

"Don't worry, it will only hurt for a few seconds! Try opening them now." Guilldendart said.

Ankas tries to slowly open his eyes, he looked around and saw that from the canteen that Maxis had there was a dark dense smoke coming out of it.

"What the-?!" Ankas said.

"That's right! Now you can see the remnants from the beast that attacked you." Guilldendart said.

"The remnants?" Ankas asked.

"Yes! If the creature that you described is the one I'm thinking, than it should have left remnants like these."

Guildendart go the canteen from Maxis and walked over the caldron. He opened the canteen and poured the remains of the creature inside. Ankas was able to see it, but the other couldn't. Guilldendart looked into the caldron and made a serious expression.

"It is the Mallukuh." Guildendart said.

"The Mallu what?" Ankas asked.

"It is a creature from the ancient times, a creature that was supposed to be looked away many years ago. Ankas, I don't have time to explain this now, go back to your village and take Maxis with you, he'll explain everything to you, I'll be right behind you, I just need to check a few things first."

And so, Ankas, Arrugah and Maxis ride back to the village with the others, in the middle of the way, Maxis tell them what is going on.

"Do you remember that they when e met each other? At the old temple in the forest?" Maxis asked.

"Yes! Could that beast be related to the temple?" Ankas asked.

"Maybe, it also could be a clue to what made the Souls of Light to go away…"

That also made Ankas think about the strange appearance of Miku, that maybe she was connected to the Souls of Light somehow.

"Ankas!" One of the youngsters said.

Ankas looked forward and saw the bolder that was blocking their way before.

"Great! Now what?" Arrugah said.

Maxis came down from his horse and approached the boulder, he dig a small whole underneath it and set a strange object in there.

"Can someone make some fire?" Maxis asked.

Ankas light up a torch and handles to him.

"Okay now! When I light this up ride back as fast as you can!" Maxis said.

He approached the object again and then lights it up, he mounted back to his horse and they ride back. Seconds later a strong noise that made the earth shake was heard and they headed back, now in the place of the boulder there was nothing but little rocks.

"What did you do?" Ankas asked.

"Weel, as you know I did became the apprentice of a magician, but I'm also an inventor, that was the job of one of my inventions, I called explosive. How did you like it?" Maxis said.

"Well, that was pretty good for sure, but we don't have time to appreciate it, let's go!" Ankas said.

And they ride back to the village, but Ankas felt the same sensation as before, he was again being watched from the forest.


	8. Chapter 7: Three friends

Souls of Light

Chapter 7: Three friends

The day is ending at Ankas's village and Miku watches the sunset while she waits for him and the others to come back, looking at the road that connects the village to the cities of the kingdom. The wind passes between her long pigtails and it starts to get cold, but she's still there, sitting at the grass, waiting for Ankas to return. One of the girls of the village that got friendly to Miku approached her.

"Miku-chan, what are you doing?" The girl asked.

"Aria-chan! I'm waiting for Ankas to return!" Miku answered with a small smile at her face and with her cheeks getting gently blushed.

"But you know, it's getting late, we should get inside now." Aria said, concerned with Miku.

"I know! I just want to wait a little longer." Miku said.

"Can I wait with you?" Aria asked her.

"Sure!" Miku answered, smiling.

Aria sits next to her. Both of them watch the sunset.

"So, Miku-chan, you really like Ankas don't you?" Aria asked.

"Yes!" Miku answered.

"Yay! That's so cool! When did you started liking him?"

"Since the day I saw him."

"So, it was love at first sight!"

"Hmm?" Miku seemed confused.

"What is it Miku-chan?"

"What's love?"

Aria lets out possibly the most confused and awkward look that she ever had at her face.

"_Ma- maybe the like I was talking about it's a different like from what she's thinking…_" Aria thought to herself as she turns around so Miku couldn't see her face.

Miku shows a confused face.

"Well… Forget about that!" Aria said. "But, what made you like him Miku-chan?"

"Well… I don't really understand but…" Miku said while she kept her hand closed upon her chest.

"Hmm?" Aria expressed.

"I felt he was a good person!" Miku answered with a smile.

"You felt?" Aria asked.

"Yes! I don't really know why, but, I just felt it." Miku said.

Slowly Aria confused expression changed to an smooth smile that appeared at her face.

"Well, I guess you could say that, he is a good person after all, right?" Aria said.

"Yes!" Miku said.

Aria and Miku looked around and saw that the sun had already set and that it was already night.

"It's so dark already?" Aria asked.

She looked to Miku and saw that she was shaking in fear.

"Miku-chan? What is it? What's wrong?" Aria kept asking her.

"I hate it…" Miku said.

"What?"

"The dark, I hate the dark!"

"But why do you hate the dark?"

"Because it scares me!"

Miku puts herself in a fetal position but with her arms around her knees and her head down, just like as if she was hiding her face.

"Whenever the sun is gone the darkness come and cover it everything! I hate it!" Miku says, as she starts to cry slowly.

Aria saw how stressed Miku was and she tries to comfort her.

"But Miku-chan, that's not true." Aria said.

"Hun?" Miku said as she lifts her head up and look at Aria. Her eyes were still watery.

"Look, at the skies." Aria said while pointing at the skies.

Miku lift her head and looks it up, she gets surprised by looking at the stars and the moon. Miku had never noticed the moon and the stars before because whenever night falls she ran inside Malthor's house, trying to hide herself from the dark.

"Wow!" Miku said.

"You see Miku-chan, whenever there is darkness there is always a small light to clear the way for you. Don't worry, darkness will never win!" Aria said to Miku.

Miku smiles. Aria gets up and stretches her arm to Miku with her hand open.

"C'mon, it's already late, let's sleep. I'm sure Ankas will be back by tomorrow." Aria said.

"Okay!" Miku answered with a smile.

She holds Aria's hand and they both get back to the village, for a good night of sleep.

In the next morning Miku is awaken by the sunshine that comes through the window of her room, gently and slowly warming her cheeks before she noticed and slowly opened her eyes. She gets up and scrubs her eyes while letting out a small yawn. She walks off her room and saw that the door to Ankas room was closed, she thought that he came back last night, she was thinking of entering it but she though he could be tired and the he didn't wanted to be bored. She goes to the kitchen an there is Malthor, preparing the breakfast.

"Ohayo Malthor-san!" Miku said, greeting Malthor.

"Oh! Ohayo Miku-chan, did you sleep well last night?" Malthor asked her.

"Yep! Did Ankas returned last night?"

"Sorry, but no."

Miku looked down, with a sad expression at her face.

"C'mon now, don't worry, he'll be back soon enough, you'll see." Malthor said.

"Okay…" Miku says while she looks out at the window.

Some hours later Miku is talking with the other girls while helping with the village chores when suddenly a small kid come running to them, he was almost out of breath.

"What is it?" Aria asked the little boy.

"A… Ank… Ankas and the others! They came back!" The boy said.

When Miku heard that she ran to the center of the village. At the center Ankas and the others were putting the horses back at the stables and guarding there equipments, Ankas was walking his horse back to the stables when suddenly he heard someone shouting:

"Ankas!"

He turned around and saw Miku jumping in the air with her arms wide open and with a big smile at her face, she hugs him and they both hit the ground.

"Hey! What the heck?! Let me go!-" Ankas was shouting and trying to get free from Miku's hug, but he suddenly stopped.

He looked at Miku and saw her as she cried.

"Miku…?" Ankas said.

"I was really worried, but I'm glad you're okay now…" Miku said.

Ankas's face seemed a bit blushed, he pet her in the head and looking to the side with an awkward expression on his face he says:

"I- I'm fine now so… You can stop crying alright…?" Ankas said, with his face all reddish.

Miku nods her head in affirmation, and the other youngsters around them are discreetly laughing.

In the middle of all that, Maxis approached. Miku got scared because she never saw him before and when both her and Ankas get up she hides behind his back.

"Are you not going to introduce me?" Maxis asked to Ankas.

"Oh yeah! Miku, this is my friend Maxis, he came here with us to help with that thing." Ankas said.

Miku slowly looks above Ankas's shoulders and quickly hides herself again.

"N- nice to meet you!" Miku says

Ankas thought that was really strange, so did Maxis.

"Hey! So you're back!" Someone said.

Ankas looked to the side and saw Aria.

"Aria? Long time no see! When did you got back?" Ankas asked her.

"Just a few days ago, I've heard something weird was going on while I was at the Capital, so I decided to go back! Unfortunately, you weren't here when I came back." Aria said.

"Yeah, I had to go somewhere. So, three months hun? How have you been?"

"I'm doing great, unfortunately I didn't passed the exam…"

"Oh, that's bad…"

"And you're not the only one I don't see in a while!" Aria said that, afterwards she grabbed Maxis by the neck with her arm.

"Hey there Maxis!" Aria said.

"He- hey… Onee-chan…" Maxis said.

"_Aria-chan is Maxis-san big sister?_" Miku asked herself.

After a couple of hours Guilldendart had finally arrived at the village, he and Maxis collected testimonies from everyone that saw the creature that night and mainly from that kid that got lost in the forest, he was still in a frail state of shock, but Guilldendart could see everything he saw even without him saying a word. The fear in the boy's eyes said all toGuilldendart.

"It was a Khrismah!" Guilldendart said.

"A Khrismah? What's that?" Ankas asked.

"It's a creature that the Makairu believed it was born from the dark itself, a creature that climbed off from the abysses of the land to bring destruction upon this world."

"What?! And what do we do now?"

"Now we can do nothing, it's already late, tomorrow we shall prepare everything to the ritual." Guilldendart looked at the horizon and saw the sunset.

"_Ritual?_" Ankas thought to himself.

When night came Ankas got back home, there at the balcony was Miku, amazed, looking at the stars.

"What are you doing?" Ankas asked.

"Hun? Ankas! I'm looking at the stars, there are so many of them!" Miku said, all excited.

"The stars?" Ankas looked up and watched the night sky together with Miku.

"Ankas, Do you know Aria-chan?" Miku asked.

"Yes, we're childhood friends, together with Maxis. Three months ago she tried to pass an exam for the royal guard of the Kingdom, but apparently, she didn't passed." Ankas said.

"I see, so you know Maxis-san too… Is Aria-chan his onee-chan?"

"Well… the answer for that is yes… and no…"

"Hmm?" Miku seemed confuse.

Ankas took a deep breath and raised his head, looking at the stars again.

"When we were kids, Maxis came to our village, he came here almost dead, his body was full of injuries and he was starving. Somehow he managed to survive, and since that day we became best friends with him, but whenever he goes Aria goes with him and looked out for him, that's how she got the fame of Onee-chan. I'm not gonna be surprised if she starts to look out for him even now, that he's all grow up."

"Hmm…. She seems like a good Onee-chan!" Miku said to him, smiling.

Ankas looked at her and thought to himself, how does she even now what Onee-chan means? He sure was curious, but since it's Miku, he knows she was never going to tell him anything.

"Let's go, it's time for us to sleep." Ankas said.

"But what about that thing?" Miku asked.

"It's too dangerous to go out now in the dark. Guilldendart said they'll deal with it by the morning."

"Okay… *Yawn*" Miku said.

Ankas turned to enter in the house but as long as he turned he heard something hitting the ground. He turns back and sees that Miku is sitting on the ground, just as if she had just fall asleep.

"_You gotta be kidding me…_" Ankas though.

He carried her inside the house and put her in bed, than he walked to his room, lay down in the bed and closed his eyes in hope that he would have a peaceful night of sleep.

*Knock* *Knock*

Someone knocks at his door.

"What?" Ankas asked, dead tired.

"Can I sleep here?" He heard a familiar voice, he didn't open his eyes but he was pretty sure it was Miku.

At this point Ankas was too much tired to put a fight with her, he just said:

"Sure…" And went back to sleep.

Miku smiled and lay down next to him, with her forehead against his back.

While they slept, Maxis and Guilldendart were talking in another house of the village…

"So… What do you think?" Guilldendart asked.

"About that girl? At first I didn't noticed, but there is something really suspicious about her, we better keep an eye on her." Maxis said.


	9. Chapter 8: Bad memories

Souls of Light

Chapter 8: Bad memories

The sun rises in the next morning, and a plan against the beast is started to be created.

"The demon must be lured out of the forest, we must attract him to the village." Guilldendart said.

"What?! Are you crazy old fool?" Malthor said.

"The forest has natural elements that makes the creature stronger, it can control the trees and animals that are within. Your nephew know this very well." Guilldendart said.

Ankas remembered the attack he and the others suffered, how the roots of the trees attack them and tried to drag them to the center of the forest.

"Alright than, but first we'll see if the villagers are secured before it comes here." Malthor said.

"As you wish." Guilldendart said

The plan was set: Ankas and the other hunters would attract the beast to the center of the village mounted in their horses, when the beast comes to the center, Guilldendart and Maxis will light up a circle of flames around the beast so that it has nowhere else to escape, and when that's done, Guilldendart shall finish it the beast stabbing it directly into its dark heart with a special dagger.

As they prepare the trap Maxis talks with Ankas.

"So, you're quite a ladies' man now hun? But I didn't think that she's your type." Maxis said.

Ankas turned to him with his cheeks red and with an angry expression in his face.

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Oh come on! The girl that came running as soon as you entered the village, nice job my friend!" Maxis patted Ankas's back.

"Please stop! *sigh* it's not what you're thinking. Remember that day we met at that old temple we found in the forest?" Ankas asked.

"Yes."

"So, after you left I was going back to the village when I tripped on something and felt downhill. When I came back up I saw that she was there. But the problem is that she doesn't know anything from this land and she don't want to talk about where she came from."

"Doesn't that makes you curious?" Maxis said as he observes Miku from a distance.

"Not really, if she doesn't want to talk about her past that's not my problem. Okay, I guess that's all."

"It's ready?"

"Yes, but I don't really know what good will be to pass this dark sand on the ground, what did you said the name was?"

"Black powder my friend Ankas, Black powder, and don't worry, it is even more power than oil when it comes up to brightness, we'll just use it as a spark for the oil under it, it will be useful to stun the beast once we light it up and to preventing it from escaping when the oil's on fire."

"If you say so, now we just need to wait for the night to come right?"

"Yeah, that's right."

After six hours the sun finally starts to set and the roars of the beast could be heard from the village's center. The villagers where secured to a location near the village, and now there is no one, just Ankas, Maxis, Arrugah and the other hunters mounted in their horses in the center of the village.

"Are you ready?" Ankas asked looking at Maxis and Arrugah.

They both nodded their heads in affirmation.

They then started riding slowly to the forest, every bone on the skeletons of those boys shake in fear, fear of what might happen if the beast attacked them right there, fear of what could happen if they fail an fear that they might won't be able to protect those they love. As they enter the forest they already feel that strange sensation, that sensation of being watched.

"There! Look!" One of the youngsters said.

Ankas looked where he pointed and in the middle of the darkness they see what looked like two dark but really shiny eyes, they looked like jewels so perfect but in a way that they seemed to have come from the world of the undead itself.

"Now! Prepare you're bows and arrows!" Ankas said.

They pulled their bows and Maxis used a torch he had with him to light up their arrows.

"Fire!" Ankas shouted.

A small rain of flaming arrows came down on the beast and it started to scream in pain. The plan so far was working, the beast was so furious that started to run as fast as it could. Most of the boys that saw that terrifying vision, a beast that was about five times bigger than them and it was running in their direction at full speed with stumps that shake the earth, started to lose heart and to run away, but in the wrong direction.

"Hey! What are you doing, the village is back there! HEY!" Ankas tried to stop them but they didn't hear him, the only thing they were hearing were their hearts racing up as the beast gets closer.

The beast notices that and starts to run in the direction of the fleeing youngsters. Ankas knew he had to stop it, if the beast continued to chase after those boys the whole plan would be ruined. Ankas pulled his bow the max he could and twisted the hand that was holding the arrow. He let go and the arrow goes flying as twice as fast and it was spinning in the air, when it hit the target it hits right in its eye and goes through the beast's, stopping only when reaching twenty five centimeters under the earth.

"Hey! Remember me?" Ankas shouted at the beast.

The beast, wounded, turned its head and sees Ankas, it remembers that he was the prey that had escaped from him, and now with this injury, it was more than one reason for the beast to get him, now it was determined to get him at all costs. Its straights it's vision and turned to run at his direction.

"Now! Ride back to the village!" Ankas ordered.

He and the others started to run as fast as they could, but the beast was approaching and fast.

"Damn it! It's getting closer!" Arrugah shouted.

"Don't worry, I have something special that will slow that thing down for a little." Maxis said, he pulled a couple of small black balls with a small wick on them.

"What's that?" Ankas asked.

"These my friend, are compact explosives I made last night, I called them hand grenades!" Maxis answered.

"Have you tested them?"

"I'm about to do it!"

Maxis lights up one of the grenades and lets it go, and In a perfect timing the beast came running right above the grenade when exploded. Not only it was a great explosive it also created a big flash of light that stuns the beast. The strange black smoke that covered its body is now almost fainting from it. It can be seen now, it is a big skeletal body but some of its muscles it was still strong, it looked like a gigantic dog that didn't eat for at least two weeks.

"It's working! Keep throwing those grenades!" Ankas said.

Maxis kept throwing the grenades, but after the third throw the beast started to evade them, it was getting closer again, but after some seconds they were out of the forest, and now they only needed to run to the center of the village.

When they got to the trap Ankas felt an strange pain in his pain, and his horse stopped.

"What are you doing? C'mon! We can't stop!" Arrugah shouted to Ankas.

"Ankas! Let's go!" Maxis shouted.

But Ankas didn't move, he was in the middle of the circle but he could not move, he had no expression on his face as well, it was as if his spirit was out of his body.

**Inside Ankas mind:**

**Ankas remembered the day his parents got murdered, it was the day that his father's village was attacked by the Nubialus Empire and he was just a small child. He was hiding in the closet of his parent's room when he saw the door of the room open, it was his father, he was thrown against it and hit the ground with his back. After that a strange figure goes through the door, he was wearing a dark cape and a hood, the only thing he could see was two shiny eyes, just like dark jewels.**

**The stranger approached his father that was on the floor, he knelt down asks.**

"_**Where is him?"**_

"_**Go back to the hole you came from!"**_** He's father said that and then spitted on his face.**

**The stranger got mad and punched him.**

"_**Why do you continue to fight Hope? You're Magnanimous have left you and you're society does no longer exist. You're nothing but a fool now, so why do you continue to fight?"**_** The stranger asked.**

"_**You just said my name and even so you don't understand… Ha ha! I don't think I'm the joke here Greed…"**_** His father said.**

"_**Hmmf! Very well, be the way you want to." **_**The stranger said.**

**He pulled out a small sword he had and aimed at his throat.**

"_**Any last words?"**_

**Ankas's father leaned his back against the wall, hurt and almost out of breath he said:**

"_**My only comfort is that sooner or later, we'll see each other again, after all…" **_**Ankas saw his father slowly pulling out a knife from his belt.**

"_**The traitors shall pay, for what they caused one day!" **_**His father tried a last attack but failed as it didn't even reached his opponents heart, the strangers blade had passed through his father's throat.**

**He felt dead on the ground and the blood started to flow on the floor. Ankas cry in silence.**

"_**You could have been much stronger my friend, if only you weren't so stupid…"**_** The stranger said and then left the room. After an hour the raid on the village had ended and Ankas got out of the closet, he runs for his father and tries to see if he would react, but it was useless, he was dead, and there was no way he was coming back.**

" _***Cough* *Cough*" **_**Ankas heard someone coughing in the house, he knew that it couldn't be an imperial soldier since they left an hour ago so he goes to see who was it. When he entered the living room, there in the floor was his mother, with a wound on her stomach caused by a knife and she was coughing blood.**

"_**Mama!"**_** Ankas shouted as he runs to her and tries to help her.**

" _***Cough* *cough*! Ankas-kun? What is it?"**_** She asked me.**

"_**Mama! You're injured!"**_

"_**It's okay, it's nothi- *cough* *cough*!" **_**The coughing is getting stronger.**

"_**Wait Mama! I'll get help!"**_** Ankas tries to get out of the house to see if there was anyone around that could help him, but his mother holds him by the arm.**

"_**Don't worry Ankas-kun, I'm okay."**_

"_**But Mama!"**_

"_**Hey, Ankas-kun."**_

"_**Hun?!" Ankas looked at his mother.**_

"_**I think you'll have to look around for yourself now, I don't think that I'll be able to be around with you for too much longer."**_

"_**What? Wah- what are you saying Mama? You're going to be okay! I'm going to get help and you're going to be alright."**_

"_**Ankas-kun, you know that it's not good to lie…"**_

**Ankas stood still for a couple of seconds, he then got near his mother and knelt.**

" _**It's alright Ankas-kun, we've taught you well, you'll be okay on your own now…"**_** She tries to cheer her son up.**

"_**But… I don't want you to go…"**_** Ankas said.**

"_**Hmm?" **_**His mother looked at him with a small smile at her face, even in death she tries to look graceful so that her son don't suffer so much when her last breath is given.**

"_**I don't want you to go! Papa won't wake up! If you're gone now, then… I'll have no one…!"**_

**Ankas was about to cry but he felt a hand patting his head, it was his mother.**

"_**Mama?" **_**Ankas looks at his mother.**__

"_**Don't worry… I know you'll be… fine. You are a strong and… curious boy… and I'm sure you'll… know a lot of… other people and befriends… with them. This world Ankas-kun… is full of… good people… always thrust Ankas-kun… in the kindness of… people… in a better future… always have… hope... okay?"**_** She said, out of breath as her time in this world is getting to an end.**

**Ankas nodded with his head in affirmation.**

"_**Good boy! You know… Ankas-kun…"**_

"_**Hun…?"**_

"_**Mama loves you… very much… *sigh*"**_

"…_**."**_

**Nothing more was heard after that sigh**

"_**Mama?" **_**Ankas asked.**

**His mother's hand slowly moves away from his head and lands on the floor, Ankas looks at his mother's face and see her eyes open, but no expression was coming from her face.**

"_**M- mama?"**_

**Her eyes look soulless and the blood from her wounds starts to flow as she doesn't have any strength to hold it closed with her hand.**

"_**Mama? Mama wake up! Please wake up! Mama, you're faking it right? You want to give me a scare right? Mama that's not funny! Mama wake up!" **_**Ankas shakes her, trying to see if she reacts, but she shows no signs of life. Her souls has left her body, but Ankas refused to believe in it…**

"_**MAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! WWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH HHH! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH HHHHHH!" **_** Ankas cries, for a long time…**

**Current Time:**

Ankas is still standing at the trap.

"C'mon Ankas! We need to keep-" Maxis was talking but then stopped when he saw tears coming out of Ankas's soulless eyes.

"Ankas…" he could see that he was moving his lips, but he didn't understand what he was saying, until her could hear a whisper:

"_Mama…?"_

At this same moment the beast jumps on Ankas, making him fall of the horse to the ground, he finally came back to itself, but now the beast holds him against the ground with its pawn.

"Let's help Ankas!" Two of the hunters tried to set Ankas free but they got hit by the creature's tale that sends them flying away.

"Can't we set the trap now?" Malthor asked Guilldendart, hasty.

"No, if we do it, he'll be killed with the creature! Just wait here!" Guilldendart said, then walked in the direction of the creature. The creature started to do the same thing he did last time, he tries to suck Ankas soul's, the other hunters tried to stop it but the arrows they shoot have no effect on his skin. Ankas vision starts to fade out, he's losing consciousness, everything was getting dark and when the last spark of light was about to be covered in eternal darkness a rock hits the beast on its head and brake its concentration. Ankas turned to the side from where the rock came from and saw Miku running in their direction.

"Get away from him!" Miku shouted with determination on her eyes.

The beast turned to her and roared at her, and quickly that determination transformed into fear, she couldn't move, the only thing that she could do was stare at the beast while fear slowly consumes her very soul.

"No! Argh!" Miku felt her head hurting again.

"Run!" Ankas shouted to her.

"I… can't…my head…" Miku said as she slowly lay on the ground with her hands on her head, the pressure was getting bigger.

The beast let Ankas go and charges Miku. Ankas gets up but there is no time to reach the beast before it attacks Miku, even like that he runs in hope that he'll stop it before it reached Miku. But right before the beast could reach her Guilldendart stood between them both.

"Look at me you filthy beast!" Guilldendart said.

The beast started at Guilldendart. Ankas could see that Guilldendart's eyes were glowing silver, just like as if he was using an enchantment on the beast, but Ankas didn't lose time, as soon as the beast got distracted by Guilldendart he started to run again, pulling out a knife from his pocket he jumps and with both hands plunges it in the back part of the neck of the beast. The beast responded the pain by going wild and trying to shake Ankas of its back, jumping and running around like a crazy horse.

"Ankas! Hold on!" Maxis said.

But it didn't helped, for Ankas was thrown away In one of the beast jumps, he role over the floor and creates serious injuries to his arms and back, when he stopped rolling he gets up and prepares as the beast full charges to his direction, he doesn't know what to do, the only weapon he had was his knife and now it was stuck on the back of his target, and it was getting closer really fast.

"Ankas! Take this!" Guilldendart pulled a strange knife from a purse he had with him and throw it to Ankas.

Ankas grabbed the knife, it was strangely different, it looked like as if it was made out of pure diamond and you could see it through it, but when Ankas grabbed him it started to glow really bright, but Ankas didn't got distracted by it for too long since the beast was now right in front of him.

The beast jumped and Ankas dodged to the side, the beast pushes a wall that was where Ankas was and jumped back to Ankas. Ankas tried to aim the knife at the beast's heart as fast as he could. The beast fell on him, and everyone went quiet.

"Ankas!" Miku shouted.

But nothing moved, even the beast was just laying there on Ankas, but after some seconds the beast started to make some small moves, everyone though it was still alive so they prepared themselves grabbing weapons. All of a sudden they see Ankas slowly crawling off under the beast's lifeless body.

"Ankas!" Miku ran to him, smiling and crying of happiness that he was still alive.

"Ankas! Are you okay?" Miku asked him.

"Yeah… I'm fine…" Ankas answered.

"Ankas… are you crying?" Miku asked as she saw that tears were coming down on his face.

"It's nothing… sorry, but I need to be alone now." Ankas said as he cleaned off those tears with his eyes and ran away.

"Ankas!" Miku tried to run after him but Malthor holds her by the shoulder.

"Don't worry Miku, he'll be fine, he just need to fight against some demons of his past, I'll tell you later what I mean." Malthor said.

Miku looked confused.

Guilldendart now approaches the body of the beast that was slowly turning into stone and after it was turned into dust and carried by the wind.

"Do you think that there are going to be more?" Malthor asked.

"I'm thinking this is just the beginning." Guilldendart said.


	10. Chapter 9: The imperial forces

Souls of Light

Chapter 9: The imperial forces

At the next morning Ankas woke up from a nightmare, that memory of his parents being killed still haunts him, he'll never forget that terrible day. He left his room and right at the side of the door was Miku, laying against the wall covered with a blanket.

"Hmm… Ankas…?" Miku said as she wakes up.

"Miku? Did you sleep here?" Ankas asked.

"Yeah, I didn't want to bother you because of what happened last night, but I was worried so…"

"Okay, I get it…" Ankas said.

Their conversation was interrupted when they heard someone shouting outside. They walked off and they saw one of the young hunters talking with Malthor, he was covered in blood and with an arrow in his sholder.

"What happened?" Malthor asked.

"We were ambushed, by imperial scouts!" The hunter said.

"What?!"

"They came out of nowhere sir! I was lucky that I was able to escape, but…"

"What about the others?"

"They… killed them all…"

I can't believe this, I knew this day was going to come, but I didn't thought it was going to be so soon…

"Okay boy, I know you did what you could, now go take some rest and get fixed up." Mannar said to the hunter that was crying for the lost of his friends.

An emergency meeting was called an all the leaders of the village were assembled in the center of the village.

"Well, what do we do now? The imperial army is on its way and we're totally vulnerable here." One of the leaders said.

"we'll have to leave the village, gathering all of the villagers and provisions, the animals as well." Malthor said.

"What?! Are you saying we should abandon the village?! No way! We build this village up when this land was nothing but a lifeless plain, and look at it now! No, we'll fight if we have to!" The other leader said.

"It's not like we want to run, but do you have any idea how we're going to do this? We don't even have an army strong enough to fight off the imperial forces! All we have are some hunters and a bunch of farmers, how do you think we could possibly win?" Ankas asked.

"Then how are we going to do this? We don't have enough time to take everyone and the animals off the village before the imperial forces appear." One of the leaders asked.

"Me and the rest of the hunters will hold them on the forest and buy you peoplesome time." Ankas said.

"Are you sure of that?" Malthor asked.

"Trust me, even if the imperial forces are stronger they know nothing about the surroundings, we have the advantage. Besides, all we have to do is to hold them off a couple of hours."

"Okay than, let's keep going!"

They started to move the cattle and the people out of the village.

"Hey Ankas! What is happening?" Maxis asked, as he watch people running around and carrying provisions.

"Apparently the imperial forces are near the village inside the forest and we have to move on, we'll try to slow them down while the rest of the village goes ahead." Ankas said.

"I'll go with you then."

"Are you sure? You don't really seem to be the fighting type."

"Don't worry, did you forgot I'm an inventor, I think I have something that will hold them up for some time."

"Okay then, it's your choice."

As the group of youngsters hunters prepare to move into the forest Miku comes running from the distance.

"Ankas!" Miku screams.

"What is it?" Ankas asked.

She came close and now tries to catch her breath.

"Please… Don't go…"

"What?"

"I heard from Malthor that it was going to be dangerous! Don't go!"

"Sorry, but it's not like as if I had a choice, I have to go, otherwise they'll kill everyone in the village."

"Then I'll go with you too!" Miku says as she holds his arm.

"What?! No!" Ankas tries to get her of his arm but she just won't let go.

As he realized that struggling wouldn't resolve the problem he sighs and calms himself down.

"Look, I know that it will be dangerous but I have no other choice, I have to go to make sure that everyone will escape safely from the village." Ankas said.

"But, what about you?" Miku asked as she looks at Ankas eyes with an innocent expression of preoccupation in her face.

Ankas's face starts to get red.

"Th- there's no problem, I'll be okay…" Ankas said as he pets Miku on the head and look at the side so she can't see his blushing face. The others start to laugh.

They start to march inside the forest with their bows in hand. Miku watches as they go for what looked like for her to be certain death.

They continue to walk slowly now as they believe they are near the place where the other hunters were attacked. In their way they found some bodies, they were the other hunters, they checked them and they didn't believe in what they were seeing. Their tongues and eyes are cut off and their hands were tied, they were tortured before they died. The imperial forces of Nubialus are trying to send a message, that fighting against the Empire would mean a slowly suffered death, for some it might have worked, but not for Ankas, in fact it just made him even eager to kill some imperial soldiers.

They heard someone coming, some of them climbed to the top of the trees and the others hid in tall grass, they were ready, just waiting for the imperials to get in range.

A group of imperial scouts appeared.

"Sir! There are foot prints here!" One of the soldiers said.

A man with a strange black armor with a helmet that remembered the head of an eagle.

"Soldiers of Karhulman?" The man asked.

"No captain, it look like hunters, just like the ones that were here before."

"_So, it was them…_" Ankas thought to himself.

"_What do we do know?_" Arrugah asked.

"_Just wait for my signal, and remember to keep moving around after every arrow you fire, don't let they know how many of us there are._" Ankas answered.

And so they waited for Ankas signal, and as Ankas thought the rest of the scouts were coming, he made signal for the hunters in the trees to fire at the scattered forces that were away from their main group.

The main group that was in the middle of Ankas and the other hunters have their attention attracted by the hunters in the trees and prepared their crossbows to fire at them. Ankas was hoping for this, he gave the order and all the hunters start firing, the main force was annihilated, but it was not over yet.

"Watch out!" One of the hunter shouted to Ankas.

Ankas dodged at the same moment he heard the warning, and in time as well, the only thing he felt was the wind that was being moved by a crossbow bolt that passed flying right by his cheek.

"Wow, that was close! Everyone! Take cover!" Ankas said.

They prepared themselves as the forces of them main army slowly marches in their direction. Ankas took a good look at them, and he knew this was a battle that a bunch of hunters would never win, there was about two hundred imperial soldiers there, the black armor, the golden details and the skull helmets meant only one thing, Barkaus, the elite soldiers of the imperial army. These man were picked one by one by the emperor himself to be the most devastating force in the land, after two years of service to the Empire they were chosen to be the royal castle guard, the personal guard of the emperor. But even knowing this Ankas knew he could not retreat, not yet, the village was still being evacuated, if the Barkaus were able to reach the villager it would be a slaughter.

"Damn! What do we do now?" Ankas asked himself.

"I have an idea! I could set a trap, but I'll need time!" Maxis said.

"We'll buy you the time we can, so hurry up!" Ankas said.

Maxis started to set up his trap and Ankas and the other hunters tried to slow down the Barkaus, but it looks like it would take more than just arrows to put these man down, they protected themselves with a huge oval shield that protected their entire body, in the shield there is the painting of a dark snake with flaming wings. They move slowly because of their heavy armor, and so all of that makes them a slowly death machine just coming to claim your life, and when they finally reach you they'll stab you with their spears and they'll not stop until the last breath of live that remains in your body is gone, this man have grown their reputation across the land doing such things.

"Are you done? We don't have much more time! They're almost here!" Ankas shouted to Maxis.

"Okay! It's done! Just jump over the wire over here!" Maxis said.

They run and jump over the place that Maxis had pointed, although Ankas didn't get knew what was going to happen. They see in the distance the Barkaus slowly marching at them and Ankas gets nervous thinking if the trap will work.

"Wait just a minute…" Maxis said.

One of the Barkaus tripped on the wire and a huge explosion happened, many of them went flying to the skies.

"Wow!" Ankas exclaimed.

Even with an explosion that big it didn't did much, the explosion took only a small part of their forces, they were still marching slowly to the village.

"We can't let them move! Fire!" Ankas shouted to the others.

But it was hopeless, the Barkaus raised their shields up and continued moving. Suddenly an crossbow bolt hits Ankas's elbow and the impact throws him on the ground, that's when they heard a strange melody, it almost sounded familiar to Ankas…

Together with the melody came a huge a tornado out of nowhere, it cleaned the forest off the imperial forces. A miracle is what they needed, and a miracle is what they had.

They walked back and saw that there was no one in the village, they had successfully evacuated the village, they march to meet with the others on the road, when they reached the others Ankas noticed that Miku wasn't there.

"Hey, where is Miku?" Ankas asked Malthor.

"Now that you asked I didn't even noticed she was gone." Malthor said.

Ankas heard someone shouting his name behind him. He turned around and saw Miku, all sweaty and almost out of breath.

"Miku? Where were you?" Ankas asked.

"I… forgot something… back at the village…" Miku said as she grasps for air.

"Are you crazy?! The imperial army was almost at the village! What was you thinking?" Ankas said.

"Sorry…" Miku said, looking down and said.

"*sigh* Okay, don't do that again alright?"

Miku nods her head in affirmation.

"Well, that's quite convincing, but what was the thing that you came back for Miku-san?" Maxis asked.

Miku started to get embarrassed.

"I- it was…" She didn't say anything.

"Hmm? What? You're not going to talk? That's because there was nothing to get there wasn't?" Maxis said.

Miku retreats behind Ankas and starts to get nervous.

"Hey! Maxis! What's this all about? Why are you making these questions?" Ankas asked, starting to get furious.

"I don't know? Maybe Miku-san can explain it better…" Maxis said as he approached to reach Miku.

Miku looked scared, she hugs Ankas by the arm.

"Don't get near her! If you try to touch her I'll break your hand!" Ankas said as he holds Maxis fist before he could reach Miku.

"You can hide anywhere you want to, but you cannot hide yourself from my eyes." Maxis said as a golden glow appeared from his eyes.

"What?!" Ankas said.

"It's time for you to tell us who are you and what are you doing here." Maxis said to Miku.


	11. Chapter 10: Secrets

Souls of Light

Chapter 10: Secrets

In one side there was Miku hiding behind Ankas's backs and scared because of the accusations and in the other side there is Maxis pointing fingers at Miku. In the middle of the situation Aria appeared out of nowhere giving Maxis a punch right at his face.

"Maxis! What do you think you're doing?! Can't you see you're making Miku-chan scared?" Aria said.

But Maxis just fainted from that punch, sometimes he have a tough attitude but he's not really much the muscular type, he could simply fracture a rib or two just by tripping into something and hitting the ground…

"Hey! What are you doing there? If you are having a fight save it for later! We need to keep moving! The rest of the Imperial forces will be here in no time!" Shouted Malthor.

After that they continued to flee from the Imperial forces that now march even quickly to reach them, they stopped for the night near a river that would flow up at night and make it deep enough so that the Imperial army wouldn't be able to reach them.

At a tent there was Ankas, Miku and Aria, trying to figure it out what was Maxis talking about.

"I don't get it, what did he meant by all that?" Ankas asked.

"I don't know, but it is for sure that if he tries to scare Miku-chan again, I'llmake sure to put him to rest in peace sooner!" Aria said, with her eyes in a burning state of anger.

"That's too much…" Ankas said with a drop of sweat rolling down his forehead.

Miku didn't said anything since that moment when Maxis started to accuse her, she actually looked as if she was feeling guilty for some reason…

"Found you!" Shouted Maxis, almost out of air because he was looking for Miku the entire camp.

"HAAA!" Miku shouted and almost as automatically jumped behind Ankas.

"What?! Do you want me to punch your head off? What is wrong with you? Why do you keep scaring Miku-chan?" Aria shouted at him.

"Sorry, but I need to ask her!" Maxis answered.

"No! As long as I'm here, you're not getting not another meter near her-"

"SHUT UP!" Maxis said angrily.

For the first time in her life Aria got scared by Maxis, she always saw him as the dummy little brother that was always fooling around, but now she looks in his eyes and she realizes how serious he is.

"Maxis…" Aria said.

Maxis turned his attention to Miku that was hiding behind Ankas.

"You may have fooled the others but you can't fool me!" Maxis said.

"What the heck are you talking about?" Ankas shouted.

"You know Ankas, when I started to learn with Guilldendart I also learned something that would be part of me the rest of my life. I learned about a curse."

"A curse?"

"Yes, the curse that makes me see the true people's auras."

"What?" Ankas was getting really confused.

"I can see by a person's aura if he is bad or good, if he is lying or telling the truth, but in the forest, back then, I saw something very different."

"What do you mean?"

"When that tornado came I saw at the trees to our side, no to far, an aura that was unreadable, it was not human, the same aura Miku have when she came back from the village after we came back. She may have faked her aura very well since from the beginning she seemed human, but she messed up when she was coming back from the village. It is also the same aura that that monster that was terrorizing your village had, unreadable…"

Ankas started to get angry at Maxis.

"What? Are you saying that Miku is a monster, just like that thing?!"

He pulled his arm back to give Maxis a punch to the face when Miku grabbed him and stopped him.

"Miku?" Ankas said.

"No… it's time for me to tell you who I am…" She looked said and worried.

Ankas calmed down.

"I am a Soul of Light, I'm the one that made that tornado appeared in the middle of the forest, Maxis-san is telling the truth, I returned because I was worried and wanted to help…" Miku said.

"A Soul… of Light? Just like the ones said in the Makairu temple?" Ankas asked.

Miku nodded her head in affirmation.

Ankas sits down. He just couldn't believe in what he was hearing.

"But didn't the Souls of Light left this land a long time ago?" Maxis asked her.

"Y- yes, it is not easy to explain…" Miku said, now she seemed more calm.

"Well, we have a lot of time." Maxis said.

Miku took a deep breath and started to tell the story.

"A long time ago, two Souls of Light were born in this land, when they looked around they saw nothing but darkness and dust, and so they decided to help this land. Together they created life in the land that prospered for many years. After some centuries the first man appeared out of nowhere, they called themselves the Makairu. The Makairu told them about the suffering that they were living, and both Souls decided to help them. And so the Souls of light created more Souls to help the Makairu to have a better life in the land, the new souls could move the stone, the air, the water, the wind, even the fires underneath the earth, and it was all good and then peace prospered for a long time as well. One day the other Soul of Light started to act strangely, he started to enjoy the suffering and paying from all man, animal and vegetable alike, that was when the other Soul of Light noticed that he had became corrupted with power, and form that day on the other turned into the Soul of Darkness and all those he created became dark inside. A war was fought and after many years the Soul of Light and those that she had created managed to lock the Soul of Darkness and all of those he had created in the deeps of this land. As thanks for the Souls of Light having restored peace and happiness into the land the Makairu promised to look out for the prison of the Souls of Darkness and those he had created and to keep him looked forever."

"But, how come you all just vanished?" Maxis asked.

"Onee-sa- I mean, the Soul of Light thought that after the Souls of Darkness were looked the land and all of those that live in it would be safe again, but she was wrong. After some years, the Soul of Light noticed that the darkness influence upon man's heart was strong to those that were weak, it corrupted them as well. She was afraid that it might corrupt the other souls and so she fled with all of us to a realm unknown by mankind."

"Well, at least is good to know that you're not a monster like those thing… So why are you here?" Maxis asked.

"I volunteered myself to investigate something."

"Investigate?"

"Yes, there is a possibility that there is a crack on the prison that holds the Souls of Darkness and their dark powers might be leaking out of it, as proof, there was the creature that attacked the village."

"So, you just came here to patch it up?"

"Sort of…"

"So, that's the truth hun…? What do you think Ankas?"

They looked at Ankas and he was still in a state of shock from what he had heard.

"Ankas-kun?" Miku asked.

"E- excuse me, I need some time to think about this…" Ankas ran away.

"Ankas-kun! Wait!" Miku ran after him.

"See? After all I was right to suspect her." Maxis said to Aria.

"Yes, I guess so, but…" Aria pulls Maxis up with one of her hands by his collar.

"If you ever talk to me in that way again, I'll destroy you! Got that?"

"Y- yes!" Answered Maxis, shaking in fear as he sees the terrifying face of anger of his Onee-chan.

After some seconds looking around Miku found Ankas sitting on an old big log looking at the river in the starry night sky.

"Ankas-kun?" Miku said.

"Why did you do that?" Ankas asked, still looking at the river.

"Hun?" Miku exclaimed.

"Why did you lied?!" He shouted.

"I- I was told by Onee-sama not to say anything to anyone." Miku said.

"Onee-sama?"

"Yes, the Soul of Light that gave life to me as well as my brothers and sisters."

"Why did she tell you to lie?"

"Onee-sama doesn't come to this land since we all left, she was afraid that all man had fallen to corruption, and told me to lie so I would be safe, so that people with bad intentions don't use my powers to their own will, she just wanted me to be safe."

Ankas stood quiet watching the river.

"But it is okay, because not all of mankind is corrupted, and I founded out because I meet you Ankas-kun."

"Hun?"

"You're not mean and you do care for others, that's why I knew I didn't needed to lie anymore." Miku hugs Ankas.

Ankas's face gets all red again.

"W-well, I guess it's alright than, le- let's go back to the camp…" He said looking to the other side trying to hide his embarrassed face from Miku.

When he turned back he saw Miku, with a soft smile at her face.

"W-well, let's get going…"

Miku holds his hand and they started to go back to the camp, but in the middle of the way Ankas feels a strange pressure in his head.

"Hugn…" Ankas falls on his knees as a result of the pain that came after the pressure.

"Ankas-kun! Are you okay?" Miku asked, worried about Ankas's state.

"**Give… me… the… SOUL!" **A strange obscure and diabolical voice screamed inside his head, just like that last time with the beast.

After some seconds he can't stand any longer and passes out.


	12. Chapter 11: Trapped

Souls of Light

Chapter 11: Trapped

Ankas opens his eyes and looks around, it was the same place he was just like the last time when he was attacked by the beast of the darkness, and just like last time, there he was, a strange being with an thin and long skeletal like silhouette.

"**Give… me… the…SOUL!" **He shouts as he tries to reach Ankas with his long and thin fingers.

But he is stopped, as a strange, strong and bright light gets in his way.

"Don't dare touch him being of the darkness! Back off to the abyss witch once you came!" A impetuous and feminine voice said, it appeared to be coming from the light.

As the creature runs away now, Ankas take a better look at the light. He can see the silhouette of a young woman. The silhouette turns to him.

"Don't worry, he shall not torment you any longer." She said.

Ankas was surprised since he didn't knew who this is, maybe another soul of light he thought.

"Who are you? Why did you saved me?" Ankas asked.

"Everything shall be revealed, in time. Now, it's time for you to wake up Ankas… Wake up!" She says as Ankas vision starts to get blurred and she starts to fade away.

"Ankas! Wake up!" Maxis is shouting.

Ankas finally opens his eyes and sees that he's in a wagon.

"What happened?" Ankas asked while touching his head, which still aches.

"You passed out!" Miku said, with a worried expression on her face.

"I'm fine." Ankas said letting out a sigh. "Where are we going now?"

"I think were heading to the town." Maxis said.

"The town?" Ankas asked.

"Yes, apparently the imperial forces attacked our village once they invaded, but not the town, we're heading there to warn them about it."

"I see."

Even so it seemed strange that the imperial forces would not attack the town first, that's one of their tactics, they capture the town first so the villages around it will be in their command automatically, and so they would gain resources from them while they continue to fight. Now that he stops to think about it, all of that fighting back in the village seemed really strange, the imperial forces would never invade a small village with a full army, things seemed very strange to him.

"Were almost there." Maxis said as he looks at the towns stone walls at the horizon.

As they passed the town gates the guards look at them with strange and confused looks in their faces, they probably knew nothing about the invading imperial force.

Once they were inside, Malthor asked to see the governor of the town.

"Hey, what happened to you kids?" Ankas looks at the side and sees Godlin.

"The village was attacked by imperials." Ankasr said.

"What?! To think that imperial scouts would come here…"

"Not scouts, it was an entire army." Maxis said.

"An army?!"

At this rate Godlin can't even talk right now, he just runs back to his blacksmith, letting us wandering what he was going to do next. Maybe he was just going to pack his things up.

After some minutes waiting the governor finally appears, using fancy clothes with details made of golden silk and using a lion pelt as a cape he walked in Malthor's direction.

"Who wished to speak to me?" He said.

"Me, I'm Greenian Malthor, head leader of the west village, we came here to warn you.'

"Warn me of what?" He asked.

"That an imperial army is coming this way."

When Malthor said that the people that had gathered around us started to whisper to each other.

"I know." The governor said with a small smile on his face but his eyes looked evil.

"What?! Then why didn't you evacuated the town yet?" Malthor asked.

"Because we're not running away, we will stay and fight!" He answered.

He turned around to the people and started a encouraging speech to keep the people from running.

"What is his problem?" Ankas asked Malthor.

"I recognized the emblem that he has on his necklace, he's a member of the Wolfhound house." Malthor answered.

"Wolfhound house?"

"Yes, and all the children of the Wolfhound are stubborn, even if he know he's going to die here he will still fight to protect the his house's honor."

"Than what do we do?" Maxis asked as the people started to cheer the governor as he finishes the speech.

"We'll stay."

"What? But if we stay we'll die as well?" Aria said.

"Don't worry, we'll not stay to fight, we'll stay to protect the civilians, if the governor and his soldiers want to fight a already lost battle than let them be, but in the meantime we'll try to find a way out and escape while they fight."

"How are we going to do that? They'll probably close all gates." Ankas said.

"We'll have to find a crack on one of the walls and open through, the stone walls of this town are strong, but they are very old and have no inspection or repairs, it will be easy with a little explosion or two." Malthor said as he looked at Maxis.

"Got it!" Maxis said giving a thumb up.

"And if things get to complicated we'll need some 'divine' help to protect the civilians." Malthor said while he looked at Miku.

"I- I will do my best!" She said with quite a high motivation.

"Okay than, just get ready when the time comes." Malthor said.

Some hours have passed and the imperial army had arrived, in the frontline, mounting on a black horse was a man in a dark armor wearing a helmet with spikes on top of it that covered his entire face except for his eyes. It was one of the most deadly and feared generals of the Nubialus Empire, General Irkahum Huraff. Known for having no mercy to anyone that opposes the Empire, Huraff gain his power in the military by treasons and assassinations. He rides a few meters away from the imperial army in the direction to the town's walls.

"I am General Irkahum Huraff, commandant of the elite forces of the great Nubialus Empire, I demand that you open the gates and surrender immediately!" He shouted with an angry voice.

"I am Kidran, firstborn of the house of Wolfhound, loyal soldier of the Kingdom of Karhulman and I say that we'll open the gates to no barbarian! We shall stand and fight for our lives." The governor shouted back.

At this moment Huraff quickly pulls a crossbow that was already loaded from hi back and shoots it, it hits the governor right in his throat and he falls back to the ground. The town guards are scared and Hurraf lets out a warcry followed by the cheer and screams of his soldiers, and the slowly deadly Barkaus approach in their phalanx formation. As they reached the range of the town's archers they fire, but it didn't make any difference, the Barkaus units started to get into a turtle formation, where they would get close to each other and form a circled shielded unified force, with their shields covering the sides and their heads they march with their spears pointing out of the sides to take out any cavalry that comes from any side.

They reached the gate and now they try to open it by pushing it down, some of the guards tried to disrupt their formation by throwing some rocks at them, and it would have worked if it wasn't for the imperial crossbow units had taken them down. The town archers tried to shoot back but as the imperial crossbow units reload they turn their back and let the huge rectangle shield that they have in their back protect them, once the town archers stopped firing, they turned back and shot them. After some seconds the Barkaus finally broke through the gates.

"What was that?" Ankas asked as he hears the sound of the gate's lock being broken.

"They must've brake through" Malthor said.

"What do we do now?" Maxis asked.

"Just as planned, Maxis go prepare the explosives! Ankas bring the other hunters with you and set them on the roofs of the building that are near the main street!" Malthor said.

"And you?" Ankas asked him.

"I'll try to get the town guards through this alive."

And so they prepared themselves, hunters in the roofs of the buildings with Ankas, Maxis preparing the explosives at the weakest wall and Miku went with Malthor in case he needs her help.

In the main street some of the guards started to run away as the deadly elite infantry of the Empire starts to walk slowly inside the town.

"Guards! Hold your ground! Hold your ground!" Malthor shouted, and the guards stopped and listened to him.

"I know that the enemy that comes towards us is fierce and fearful, and I also know that we probably don't have a chance against it, but we need to hold them off until a door is open for our escape!"

"But how? Every gate of the town is locked up and it would take too long for us to open them." One of the guards said.

"I know this, and that's why I already have someone working to breach one of the walls, but we need time to do so and to help the folks of this town, we must protect them until the wall is breached!"

"B- but it is impossible! We are no match against the imperial elite forces! We're all going to die!" One of the guards started to freak out.

Malthor approached the soldier and grabbed him by the collar of his armor and pulled him closer to him.

"Now you're going to listen to me soldier! You have sworn to protect these people with your own life, were you not?" Malthor shouted at him.

"Y-yes!" The guard pulled himself together again.

"All of you had made this sworn, for no matter how strong is the enemy or how great its army is you will stand together to protect the souls of the innocents until your last breath! And you know why? Because you all are here for justice! Justice that the enemy will pay for their sins! And even if your life comes to an end while the sun sets, people will remember, remember and say that you all stood for what was right!"

As Malthor finishes his speech the guards that were running away for their lives now cheer with screams, preparing themselves to battle. It was strange though for Ankas, as he never knew his uncle could be such an inspiring commander, as far as he knew he was just a simple farmer.

"Listen up man! Prepare yourselves! Shield wall!"

As Malthor shouted that order the guards put their round medium sized shields together and formed an impenetrable shield wall, there was no space between them to put their spears out, and it was not needed to, since we just wanted to hold them off for some time. It worked for a few minutes, even so that it made some of the enemy soldiers to go mad and breaking formation trying to move the shields with their bare hands, and it was then that Ankas and the others would take him down with their arrow fire, since it had broken the formation of the phalanx it was now vulnerable to any enemy arrows.

As they continue to hold off the imperial elite forces the crossbow units outside the town walls started to rain fire above the heads of the guards.

"Back up shields! Now!" Malthor shouted.

When he said that some man from the village brought big rectangular shields and put them above the heads of the soldiers forming the shield wall, for a time it was preventing them from getting hit from enemy fire, but as the enemy forces pushes their spears against the shield wall the guards started to fall back.

"Miku-chan! We could use a little help right now!" Malthor shouted to Miku that was about only some meters behind the shield wall.

"R- right! I got it!" She said.

She than started to sing in a softly and smooth voice and out of nowhere a strong wind appears and pushes the imperial forces back, it was not something strong as the tornado in the forest, but it was enough to keep them off while Maxis set the explosives.

Without knowing, an imperial assassin had climbed the building were Ankas was with some of the youngsters hunters and runs direct at him to kill him. At this time a sword comes flying and goes right through the assassin's chest, Ankas looks at the other side were the sword came from.

"Do you need a little help?" Aria said.

"Aria? What are you doing here? Get out, it's too dangerous!" Ankas said

"I can take care of myself! More importantly, can you take care of yourself as well?" She said.

Ankas lowered his head and let out a sigh.

"Okay, but if the situation changes, you go back alright?" Ankas says as he gives her a bow and some arrows.

At the back of the enemy lines there General Huraff, who was quite annoyed by the fact that his troops were having trouble to invade a small town, as he wonders to why they were having such problems one of his soldiers who was on the frontline comes back to him.

"Soldier, report what's the situation?" Huraff asked.

"Sir! The main force of the army is being held back by the enemy's shield wall formation!" The soldier said.

"What?! How could the enemy stop our forces, it makes no sense!"

"And also sir…"

"Hmm?"

"A strange girl who the soldiers had claimed to have supernatural powers is holding them back as well!"

"_A girl with supernatural powers? Could it be…?"_ Huraff thought with himself.

"Soldier! Prepare my horse!"

"Yes sir!"

Huraff mounted on his monstrous horse and rode in the direction of the town gates, as he gets in he sees the scene of his elite soldiers being pushed back by a small band of soldiers and farmers. He looks over their lines and sees Miku.

"You!" Huraff shouts.

When Miku hears his voice she opens her eyes and look inside his deadly red eyes and sees his inhuman soul.

"Agh…" Miku falls on her knee as she feels a strong pain in her head again.

"You're mine!" Huraff says as he rides, going berserk at the shield wall, he breaks through his own units and the town guards formation.

"Die!" He shouts as he points hi spear at Miku while he charges in his monstrous horse.

"Miku!" Ankas shouted.

Immediately, Ankas Throw the bow at the side and pulls his knife out of his belt as he runs in Huraff's direction. He jumps with his aim at Huraff's head, in hope to penetrate his helmet through one of the eyes gaps and so killing him with a direct hit at his brain.

The momentum in Ankas's jump makes Huraff fall of his horse in the time of the impact. Ankas did hits his right eye, but for his misfortune, he doesn't dies.

"**AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH" ** Huraff screams with pain.

"You little brat! I'll make you pay for this!"

He grabs ankas by his legs while he was still on the ground and throws him at the wall of the building to one of his sides.

"GAHH!" Ankas pukes blood.

"Ankas-kun!" Miku shouts.

"Now, I'll finish you off!" Huraff says as he gets up and pulls his giant mace off of his back and with both arms lifts it up to give the final blow.

"No!" Miku shouted again.

"I have to say boy, it was quite an impressive thing what you did. It is a hard thing to make such a deep wound on a man like me, too bad you'll have to die for what you did." Huraff says as Ankas is agonizing on the floor.

When he was finally about to give the final blow a metallic sound was heard, it was Malthor, holding to a curved golden sword he had stopped Huraff from finishing off Ankas.

"Who do you think you…" Huraff said and stopped for a moment.

"Miku-chan, take Ankas back to the combined point okay?" Malthor says while Miku was still shocked by seeing Ankas in that state.

"Y-yes!" She said, and helped him get up and walk, giving him her shoulder as support.

"You! Yes, I remember now, there is no way I would forget this soul." Huraff said.

"How long has it been now Anger?" Malthor asked as their swords started to create sparks with the friction.

"A long time, Holy Soldier Bravery!" Hurraf said.


	13. Chapter 12: Clash of guardians

Souls of Light

Chapter 12: Clash of guardians

"So, how many years has it been since we last saw each other Bravery?" Said Huraff with a deep, dark voice.

"I don't know exactly, but it seems you didn't change a bit, still a just a boy field with anger and impatience-" As Malthor said that he dodges Huraff's mace.

"And you, still can't hold your tongue hun?" Hurraf says as he lifts his mace back up.

"I guess I don't have another choice, I'll have to hold you here, at least for some time."

Huraff soldiers approached with their spears prepared to attack Malthor, but Hurraf gave the order for them to stop raising his hand up.

"Sir?" One of the soldiers asked.

"Do not interfere! His life is mine to take!" Hurraf said, with a strong voice.

"Yours to take? Don't make me laugh! If you have improved so much since the last time we fought, then show me!" Malthor said as he raises his golden curved blade with both his blade.

"You'll pay for your insolence, Bravery!"

As they start to fight, Miku and Aria were carrying Ankas back to the wall were Maxis was preparing the explosives to open a path for them to retreat.

"What happened?!" Maxis asked, confused and nervous as he sees Ankas covered in blood and unconscious.

"Huraff tossed him on a wall, he might have broken some ribs." Aria said.

Miku looked shocked by the state that Ankas was.

"Miku-chan?" Aria asked.

"Ankas-kun… wake up, please, wake up… *sniff*" Miku starts to cry.

"Miku-chan, he's gonna be fine okay? Calm down a little, I need you to help me now." Aria said to her, trying to calm her down.

"Okay." Miku says as she cleans up her tears.

As they tried to help Ankas and prepare the wall to be exploded Malthor and Huraff prepare to fight, in each side there is a wall of shields and spears.

"So, how much more will you resist? Isn't enough that you order is gone?" Huraff said.

"It doesn't matter if the order is gone, as long as there are Holy Soldiers, there will be others to stop the darkness." Malthor said.

After he said that he tried to hit Huraff with his curved golden blade, he missed, and Huraff tries to hit him with his mace as well, and they go on fighting. After some minutes both of them starts to sweat.

"I must admit that you are a remarkable warrior Bravery, but how much longer will there be other Holy Warriors? The remnants of what was once a great army of followers is all that remains from your precious order! Don't be foolish, stop deluding yourself! Your brother thought just like you, and look what happened to him now!" Hurraf shouted.

As he said that Malthor hit the blade of his sword against Huraff's mace and both started to struggle to subjugate the other.

"So, it was you that…" Malthor had his eyes filled with fury, and a desire to murder.

"No, but it was someone even closer to you and to your brother family..." Huraff responded.

"I see!"Malthor said as he pushed Huraff back.

"Sir! Everything is ready!" Said one of the villagers.

"Sorry for this Huraff, but we'll have to end this fight another day!"

"You'll won't get away!" Huraff says as he lifts his mace up for a last strike.

Malthor put his hands together, like as if he was praying and closed his eyes, when the mace came down, before it could hit him, Malthor stretched his arms open and opened his eyes that appeared to be in fire with an strong white light he shouted:

"_Illuminat!"_

As he says that a strong white light comes out of his body as fast as the blink of an eye. Aimed at the direction of the enemy units, they could not stand the strong light and they got blinded by it for a minute, when they opened their eyes, they saw that they were all gone.

"_Hmff! I see you still got some tricks under your sleeves Bravery."_ Thought Haruff.

"Sir,if we run we can still catch them." One of the soldiers said.

"No! We got the town it's all that we needed, let them run, for now…" Huraff said.

As they run back to the wall section that was about to be detonated one of the town guards asks Malthor:

"How did you do that? Are you a wizard or something?"

"Something like that, but we don't have time for me to explain, for now, just run!" Malthor said.

They reached the section of the wall that was to be detonated, the wall was all set to go.

"We're ready!" Maxis said.

"What are you wating for? Blow them up!" Malthor said.

As they cleared the area of the explosion , Maxis activates the device to blow the wall and so it happened, thousands of pieces of the wall flying all around the place.

"Let's go!" Shouted Malthor as he helped the townsfolk to escape.

They successfully did it, they managed to hold back the imperial troops and helped every citizen of the town to escape, not only that, they managed to save themselves and the town guards as well, the day was going well so far. They continue to travel, to the capital this time, in an attempt to warn the king about the imperial invasion on the borders of the kingdom and the lost of one of his towns.

It's noon now and Ankas starts to wake up.

"Hmm…" Ankas murmured.

"Ankas-kun!" Miku said, relieved to see that he's waking up now and okay.

"What… happened?" Ankas asked.

"You got thrown into a wall by Huraff, you might have broken some ribs, so try not to move so much." Aria said.

"My head, still hurts, hun?" Ankas felt something on his hand.

He looked to his side and saw Miku crying, with her tears falling on his hand.

"Miku?" He said.

"I was worried *sob* that you would be…" She tries to talk, but she starts to cry again.

"Hey, it's alright." Ankas pets her head.

"I'm alright now, so you can stop crying, okay?" Ankas asks her.

She nods her head in affirmation as she tries to hold her tears.

"And what are we going now?" Ankas asked Aria.

"I heard that were going to the capital, to warn the king." Aria answered.

"I see…"

They walked a few more miles and stopped to camp inside a dense forest.

"Hey, isn't a bad idea to stop here? The last time we entered a forest like this one it didn't go really well." Ankas asked Aria.

"Don't worry, we setting up a barrier in case that anything happens." Ankas looked to the back part of the wagon he was in and there it was Malthor and Guilldendart.

"Uncle!" Ankas said.

"Well, how are you feeling Ankas?" Malthor asked.

"I'm fine, it's hard to breath sometimes, but I'll live I guess." Ankas jokes about the situation.

They all give it a small laugh.

"Uncle, in the middle of the way I heard some of the Towns Guards talking about how you fought against Huraff, how did you do that?"

Malthor had a serious look in his face.

"Come, I must tell you the whole story." Malthor said.

Aria and Miku helped Ankas out of the wagon and they sat around a small fire they build.

"Master!" Maxis comes running.

"Have finished sealing the circle?" Guilldendart asked.

"Yes, I just finished writing the last few symbols." Maxis answered.

"Then come, there is something you need to hear."

As they join to sit around the fire Ankas asks:

"So uncle, what is it that we need to know?"

"The truth." Malthor said.

"The… truth?" Ankas asked.

"Yes, of what we are, why do we fight, and the reasons we continue to follow this path of justice." Malthor says as he pulls of his golden curved sword and puts it in front of him on the ground.

"The question you should ask is, do you want to hear the truth?"


	14. Chapter 13: My duty!

Souls of Light

Chapter 13: My duty!

They were all sitting around a fire, sharing the warmth that the fire provided them in the cold evening.

"So? What is the story?" Ankas asked his uncle.

Malthor and Guilldendart made eye contact for one second, than he turned back to Ankas and the others.

"Well, it all begun a long, long time ago. You must have heard the beginning of all of it already by Miku-chan, so I'm just going to jump those parts."

Everyone concentrated on every word he said and that he was going to say.

"When the other Soul of Light got transformed by darkness, the Makairu got divided by two sides. The Holy Soldiers, and the Dark Vanguard. The war endured for a long time, the Holy Soldiers mission was to stop the evil reign of the Soul of Darkness at all costs, but there was an obstacle, the Dark Vanguard, soldiers that the Soul of Darkness had conquered by his promises of power and treasures far beyond their imagination. The Dark Vanguard made everything they could in their power to stop the Holy Soldiers, especially since they have earned dark powers from the Soul of Darkness. And like the Soul of Light he had created souls of darkness to ruin and destroy the Makairu life forever. As a counter action to this the souls of light that helped controlled the elements and nature gave special powers to certain Holy soldiers. The soldiers from both sides were named after what they did to get the attention of the respective souls that gave them their powers."

"Like what?" Ankas said.

"Bravery." He pointed at himself.

"And loyalty" He pointed at Guilldendart.

Everyone got surprised, especially Ankas and Maxis, they never would had thought that those two were Holy Soldiers.

"So, you're telling me that you're a Holy Soldier?" Ankas asked Malthor.

"Yes."

"You? My uncle? The guy that farms all they long and complains when the weather is not good enough to harvest anything? You?" Ankas got a doubtful look on his face.

"Yes, that's me." Malthor said.

Ankas giggled a little as he shakes his head one side to the other.

"You know what? I already know about the souls so that doesn't even bother me anymore, go ahead, please?" Ankas said.

"Okay then! Differently from the souls of light, the souls of darkness had powers for torturing and destruction, they could enter a man's mind and make him mad in an instant, transform he's strengths into his weakness and break every single bone of their bodies with the movement of one finger. After years of wars the Soul of Darkness was finally defeated. Sealed in a special place just for him, but even so the world wasn't cleaned of this darkness. Sometime later there were still signs of man that were being corrupted by darkness, signs that claimed the presence of the Dark Vanguard on this land. It is true that the souls of light had left us, in fear that they themselves, having their powers weakened by the years of war against the Soul of Darkness and their vassals, would be corrupted by the darkness and end up torturing those that they had helped so much. Before the souls left, they made a deal with the Holy Soldiers, that even after they had gone, they would still talk to us and aid us in the continuous fight against the darkness and it soldiers. And so the fight still goes on and on, even today."

"If that's true, how come you're not fighting? Why did you settle down as a farmer on a small village?" Ankas asked.

"I never said that we were the winning side." Malthor had a serious expression on his face.

"What… do you mean?" Maxis asked.

"Since the day that the souls of light left things got out of control, many of the Holy Soldiers succumbed to the darkness, and many of us got murdered by them. The problem is that even if the souls of light give us our powers we will always need their aid if we are truly to defeat the forces of darkness and darkness itself, the other problem is, the Soul of Darkness is closer, and can aid his soldiers at any time in any way."

"So, how would you define the position that the Holy Soldiers find themselves now?"

"Scattered, from time to time we see each other and try to know how things are going. I heard that it was much better in the past, now, we're falling down like ruins. There is only one thing that made my hopes go up…"

"What?" Aria asked.

Malhor pointed at Miku.

"Miku?" Ankas asked.

"Yes. The fact that the souls of light are coming back means that their ready to fight off the darkness and seal the Soul of Darkness's prison forever."

"Did you knew that Miku was a soul of light?"

"Yes, the soul of light that gave me the power allow my eyes to distinguish who have light and who have darkness inside themselves."

"Does that mean that Guilldendart's soul of light is different?" Maxis said.

"Yes. The souls choose only one person to be their vassals, and they have to prove to them that they should earn that power."

"What soul of light choose you?" Ankas asked.

"You might not know, but I guess Miku-chan has discovered it already. Right, Miku-chan?" Malthor asked.

"Y-yes! Even though I was near the wall I could see the light. It looked really similar to onee-sama's…" Miku said.

"Wow, wow! Are you telling me that you are the vassal of 'The' Soul of Light?!" Ankas asked.

Malthor just opened his arms without saying nothing.

Ankas got more than surprised now. Not only he had discovered that his uncle was a Holy Soldiers, he was also the vassal of one of the two Souls of Light.

"And what about Huraff? Was he one…?" Maxis asked.

"Yes, he's known as Anger, one of Soul of Darkness's vassals. We've met before, things didn't went well last time, for both of us." Malthor said.

"I see. Thanks uncle, for telling us the story, but I'm guessing there is more to talk about right?" Ankas asked.

"Yes. It is a common thing for the children of Holy Soldiers to inherit their parents position."

"Where are you going with this uncle?"

Malthor took a deep breath.

"I'm saying that… Your father Ankas… He was a guardian as well. You don't remember don't you? About what happened that day?"

When Malthor said that, Ankas remembered. That single moment where he had that horrible nightmare, with the hooded man murdering his father and mother. He had cold sweat coming down his forehead.

"What happened." Ankas asked, with a serious expression on his face.

"Your parents were murdered by Dark Vanguard Soldier."

Ankas's heart filled up with rage at that moment, not that he wasn't angry before, but now he knew the reason. One of Soul of Darkness's vassals had murdered his father, a Holy soldier, a man that fought his whole life against the darkness to protect those who needed protection against it. He was boiling inside with rage.

"Who was it? Do you know?" Ankas persisted.

"It is better if you don't know…" Malthor answered.

"So you know who he is?! Tell me! I want to know who's the bastard that murdered my parents!"

"For what?! Are you trying to be a big hero or something?! Revenge is never the way to go Ankas."

"If you won't tell me, then I'm going to find him myself!"

Ankas got up and turned away.

"No you're not! Your parents sacrificed themselves to keep you safe! Away from the darkness! And even if you knew who he is, you're not prepared to fight him…"

"Than just tell me! What is the worst that could happen for me to knowing it?!"

"He is your uncle!" Malthor shouted at him.

Silence filled the air, everyone around was stunned by what he said. Malthor was already getting out of control when he's nephew was persisting, either he punched him or tell him the truth. He chose the second one.

"W-what?!" Ankas couldn't believe his words.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. The person that murdered your parents is your mother's older brother, who was also a Holy Soldier. Him and your father were close friends."

"So what happened?!" Ankas tried to understand the situation.

They both sit back near the fire and the others.

"Your uncle was loyal and strong like your father, but one day everything changed. He was corrupted by the darkness, and has received a single mission, a mission that he still follows even today. To hunt down and kill you!"

"Why me?"

"No one knows. One thing is certain though, the Soul of Darkness fears you Ankas, fears you more than anything else."

Ankas stood still for a while, thinking.

"Even if he is my uncle, I have to deal with him! I can't let him get away with my parents murder!"

"Well, I know that, that is why you'll need to prepare yourself first."

"Hun?"

"What? Did you think you could fight a Dark Vanguard soldier face to face and survive? You barely survived Huraff's throw and he didn't even used any powers at you."

"So what do I do?"

"You'll train to transform yourself in what you were always meant to be. A Holy Soldier!" Guilldendart said.

"_He finally said something. I thought he was going to be there like a statue the whole conversation…" _Maxis murmured.

"A Holy Soldier? Me?" Ankas was surprised.

"Well of course! What were you thinking when I said that the children of Holy Soldiers tend to inherit their parents position?" Malthor said.

"W- wait a minute! I can't be a Holy Soldier! How did you came to that conclusion?!"

"The day that she appeared." Malthro pointed at Miku.

She tried to hide her face behind her small hands, embarrassed by the attention.

"You got to be kidding me." Ankas said.

"No, I'm not. Since she appeared I could see right away that you two had a special connection."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you mister is from now on Miku-chan's vassal."

"What?!" Ankas sighed.

"S- sorry…" Miku said.

"And what are you saying that for?! It's not like it's your fault!" Ankas shouted.

"A- actually, part of it is… you see… Onee-sama sent me back here with a mission in particular. She said to find the child of the prophecy and make him become my vassal. When I saw you I knew it was you… Sorry…" Miku was in a fetal position, with her arms around her legs and hiding her face behind her knees.

"*Sigh* why me?" Ankas grumbled to himself.

"So, what are you going to do Ankas?" Malthor asked.

There were not many choices to take, actually, there was no choice. Since they had left the village Ankas couldn't hide from his uncle anymore, he would go to safer places, big cities that would make easier for his uncle to track him down and kill him. He also had to protect Miku for he had become her vassal by the order of the Soul of Light herself.

Ankas lifted his head up and said:

"I guess I don't have much of a choice… Alright, I'll do it!"

All his friends cheered.

"Alright than, well start the training tomorrow while we travel to the capital. But first, Miku-chan, did you said something about the child of the prophecy?" Malthor asked.

"Yes! B- but I don't know exactly what Onee-sama meant either, she just said that I would knew who he was when I saw him."

"Hmm… This is very interesting. I'll meditate and try to find out what prophecy she was talking about, but you Guilldendart and Maxis are welcome to make a search of your own." Malthor said.

After that everyone went to their tents. And in the middle of the night there could be heard small footsteps on the grass, running to Ankas's tent. Miku, as always, still couldn't sleep alone, and found shelter close to her loyal vassal.

**At an imperial camp site:**

The tent where this man is found is silent. No one dares to even set foot on the grounds around it without being called first. Inside the man meditates.

"_Have you… found… the child…?"_

The strange and distorted creature of the darkness appears again, it is speaking with this man in a place that seemed from a different dimension. The man could look around how much he wanted, he could never see a single light. Around him pure darkness, and the only thing in front of him is that horrible, uncompleted creature.

"No my lord, but don't worry. My informants are working on find in him. Soon, there will be nothing to threaten your reign over these pathetic humans." The man answered.

"_That better… be true… for you own… sake... betrayal. Do not… fail me… again…"_

The creature and the place around the man starts to fade away, and soon the only darkness that he sees is the darkness of his own eyelids.

"Sir!" A man entered the tent.

The man had rags for clothes, looking more like a homeless person than with someone of the ranks of the army.

"Ah, Mayri! My boy! Good thing you return, now. Let us talk about business."

As Betrayal says that his shadow transforms itself. It changes into thousands of small hands with demonic claws that reach the young man's neck and starts to choke him.

"You know Mayri, when I rescued you from that rotting and chaotic town I did so believing in your natural potential. I knew that in that time you had a great talent to get crucial information for your survival, and all that I ask is that you do the same, but for me. But in the last years you have being really inefficient!"

When he said that, the hands that were choking him started getting more brutal. They were putting more pressure into his throat.

"Wait…! *gasp*! Sir… I have… more news…" Mayri struggles to speak and breathe.

"Then tell me, and it better be good news…" Betrayal retreated the arms and they came back to be his shadow.

The boy falls on the ground coughing, trying to get some air inside his lungs.

"The boy that you're looking for, word is that his village was attacked by imperial troops and they are running away to the capital. And more, it appears that with him, there is a soul of light."

As he said that Betrayal grabbed him by his collar.

"Are you sure about that?!"

"Y- yes sir! I'm very sure!" Mayri was scared to death.

Betrayal thought for a second. He slowly put Mayri back on the floor and throws a small bag of coins to him.

"Very good boy, now, go get yourself a good meal and a bath, you deserve it."

Betrayal gets out of his tent.

"Sir?" Mayri followed him outside.

"I'll be back in some weeks, until then, stay close to this company, understood?"

"Yes sir!" Mayri leaves him.

"Well than, isn't this great? I guess it's time for a family reunion."

From Betrayal's back started to come out tentacles made out of pure darkness. They reached his sides and left his body. They quickly transformed into dark wolves, and they ran when he ordered with his hand.

"After all, it had been quite a while since I saw my adorable nephew."


End file.
